Exile: Hidden world
by Elthial
Summary: When the rebels threaten to expose the secrets of the exiles' backdoors, only the creatures of the Den - a dangerous and wondrous place far beneath the streets of london, can stop them. Rated R for language.
1. Chapter 1

**TITLE:** EXILE: HIDDEN WORLD

**AUTHOR:** ELTHIAL

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own the Matrix or any of its characters so don't sue etc but I definitely do own Lilith and pretty much the majority of characters in this fic, they are mine and mine alone, if you want to play with them then ask nicely :P

**NOTE:** My french isnt exactly brilliant since i failed but i tried, this is the largest ATS fic ever write beating C&C 34,000 words. Its going up on instead of the ATS website first so i can benefit from the review system.... READ & REVIEW PLZ

Quentin waited patiently as the search engine compiled thousands of results and organised the relevant pages for the user to review. What he was seeking was a veritable needle in a haystack, years of myths, stories and movies had all but buried the truth so far down in the depths of false information that he feared he it may well remain hidden from him forever. He didn't even truly know if what he was searching for even existed, for all his years of looking he only had fragments of half information; all he knew was that he had to find out once and for all. Lest it remain in his head clawing away at what remained of his sanity.

In his searches he had found others that searched night and day for elusive answers, it seemed that the world hid many secrets, many dark and mysterious secrets and those who were rumoured to have found the truth seemed to disappear from existence, no trace of them left. Their disappearances were enough to give him pause; their disappearance could be caused by the dangerous wraiths he was chasing although some of the others believed that they were caused the government covering up some conspiracy or other. He wasn't alone in his search and although others wanted to find answers to different questions such as "what is the matrix?" and "are we alone in the universe?" their resources could be of great use, having access to materials that were usually restricted from him.

Quentin leaned forwards in his chair as his instant messenger program chimed, informing him of a new message, opening the flashing box he looked at the incoming message.

Lorelei: Hi dark

Lorelei: How goes the search?

Darkworld5: Same old same old, still looking for more information

Darkworld5: I still feel like I'm still missing that last piece of the puzzle...

Darkworld5: LOL, Knowing my luck I'm probably missing the rest of the puzzle too...

Darkworld5: So, how's you?

Lorelei: I dunno, some thing really strange is happening.

Quentin looked at Lorelei's last message trying to figure out what they meant, failing he decided to ask.

Darkworld5: Strange as in how?

Lorelei: There's been a spate of murders and disappearances, it's a little worrying.

Lorelei: The police are useless as usual, what I find is worrying is these aint the kind of people who suddenly disappear.

Lorelei: They're school students and such.

Darkworld5: You okay?

Quentin paused for a moment.

Lorelei: FOCL, don't worry dark, I can handle myself. I'm the last person to worry about.

Darkworld5: Good

Lorelei: No the reason I'm telling you is its people looking for answers who are going missing. Be careful dark.

There was an awkward pause in the conversation with Quentin trying to work out how to answer back to that, Lorelei saved him from the problem by piping up again.

Lorelei: If you don't mind me asking but why are you looking for them? It seems dangerous...

From the message it seemed to him that Lorelei was generally wondering and maybe a little worried, most people just dismissed his search as crazy or as an eccentric hobby.

Darkworld5: I dunno... It just... I feel this inch in my mind... I think I saw one once and now, I just have to know if they are real, if they exist..

Lorelei: Alright, i have to go now....Just be careful. I'd rather nothing happen to you. best of luck...

Lorelei Has Logged Off.

Quentin stared at the screen for a moment before leaning back in his chair, that had been a strange conversation especially when Lorelei had said he/she was the last person he had to worry about. Maybe they knew karate or something, Quentin shrugged then turned his attention back to the computer as the search engine bleeped, showing it had finished compiling results. Back to another night of searching then.

* * *

London is one of the oldest cities, its history bloody, mysterious and as such it tends to attract certain inhabitants, few even gave it a thought as this ancient city has seen their like over and over again. While few believed the myths or in the creatures that roam, many who do accidentally stumble across them create great fantasies to convince themselves against what they saw. 

In this city everyone is willing to pretend they don't exist, something which suits them fine.

One such Mythological creature was Katrina although technically there was nothing mythological about her, that was false truths perpetuated by the ignorant masses and she was in fact an Exile, a rogue computer program that existed in the simulation of a world that has been destroyed for several centuries. Although if Katrina was honest that sounded no less incredible than half the myths that existed, Katrina herself was perhaps what you would class as a typical female vampire, she had the trademark long black hair, scarlet coloured eyes and her skin tone was a shade too pale. Her kind were mostly created through the incompatibilities between the codes of the previous version of the Matrix and the current one, she hadn't always been a vicious bloodsucking predator that needed to feed regularly from the blood of humans. Once upon a time she had been a fiery redhead Russian girl whom had enjoyed art and music although she still enjoyed such things becoming a bloody predator and forever hiding from the sun had permanently tainted her soul if such things existed.

A long time ago she would have greatly mourned the loss of her innocence and hated having to kill to sustain her existence, admittedly vampires did not actually _have_ to kill their prey but going to long without killing made one more unstable and then friends and family suffered. They were monsters, predators and it seemed like that was the way they were always going to remain, it was a curse that few other types of Exiles understood and many shunned them as Heartless murderers especially the arrogant angels. Few vampires had ever changed what they were, Persephone was the most well known, she couldn't stand what she had become and had thrown herself at the Merovingian begging to no longer be a monster but that had a terrible price. One that Persephone would likely to continue to pay for the rest of her life, all other stories ended in similar ways and Katrina had come to accept that there would never be anyway to go back to her previous existence. So she merely lived life every day at a time, trying to forget the blood and countless victims until she hungered once again, like now.

With lidded eyes Katrina watched people walk past her in the street while she leant against the wall of a building, ignored by the vast majority of people passing her by. Some could sense something wrong with her, unworldly but that same sense convinced them not to linger and they scuttled along fearful of what they sensed.

Katrina's partner Marcus was elsewhere in the city, **_'Most likely off hunting, the greedy sod'_** Thought Katrina irritably; he hadn't even bothered to invite her along and that _really_ pissed her off. Still she was perfectly capable of getting her own lunch, so here she was idly watching the crowds and listening to the music coming from the still open shops and the night-club that was just across the road. She could have taken any of the hundreds of sheep that flocked past her on the streets, and would do if need be, but her people were engaged in a war and eating an dangerous enemy was not only more satisfying than a Coppertop but also depleted the enemies numbers.

It was a vicious war over territory that existed only within this one city, London was home to Lilith's clan and coven, and it was also home to several major facilities that insured stability and control throughout the entire matrix. As such the rebellion sought to control, compromise and destroy those key building in the hope of damaging the Agents control, added to that the fact London was a capital city with a lot of potentials to recruit and you had a serious bid for power on your hands. The war to control the streets of London had been going on for almost 100 years with the rebels fairly quickly realising the significance of the area as they learnt more and more about technology, the area was unique for another reason. The Agents didn't search and destroy Rebel or Exile targets; it was an unwritten law that as long as both Exiles and Rebels kept their fights out of the publics' eye and didn't do anything to threaten the safety of the Matrix then the Agents didn't care what they did. The Agents had suffered their own casualties, mainly from the Exiles and their abilities, so therefore after losing two of the original trio of the London Agents, they were quite content to sit back and let the two sides decimate each other to their hearts content. The Agents now only protected the key facilities and occasionally went out for hunting when there was too much unrest amongst the ranks of Rebels and Exiles.

Scanning the crowd once again Katrina spotted two people who looked suspiciously like her desired prey entering the night-club across the road, slipping silently through the crowd she followed them, far enough behind not to be noticed but not far enough to lose track of them. While the two rebels went straight up to the bar without checking around, **_'Sloppy of them'_** though Katrina, she slide into one of the darkened corners of the room and made herself at home before observing the two from across the club. As far as she could tell they were either recruiting another unfortunate soul tonight or were once again seeking information to use against both her fellow Exiles and the Agents. The first of the rebels was a tall 6 foot 4 inch man with ginger hair if Katrina judged correctly; he was wearing what would be considered the standard Rebel "uniform" made of black leather. The second Rebel was shorter and Katrina guessed his height to be about 5 foot 8 inches with neon green hair and a bomber jacket.

Katrina watched the two for a moment as they ordered drinks and talked with the barkeeper before scanning around the club, the normal variety of coppertops hung around whilst there were no other Exiles in the club, there was Recruit Moore sitting in another corner unnoticed by the Rebels. He spotted Katrina looking his way and raised his glass in salute, she hated that devious fucker of a Recruit but she didn't want to pick a fight tonight, it seemed neither did he. He did seem interested in what she was going to do with the Rebels however as he indicated with his pint glass, Katrina grinned nastily in reply, licking her lips making the Recruit smirk before going back to his drink.

She flicked an eye towards the bar where the two Rebels were leisurely talking to the barkeeper, catching up on the local news and gossip while they slowly drank their drinks fully giving the appearance that they might be there for a while. Catching the eye of a particularly attractive Coppertop on the clubs dance floor, she made her way to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, whispering in his ear if he would enjoy dancing with her. She spent the next few minutes dancing to the music that thumped out of the clubs speakers and enjoying the feeling of a mans body against hers as she lost herself in the moment, forgetting about her life for a moment.

The hotness that was the strong male Coppertop was taken away from Katrina as Recruit Moore cut in taking his place, the Coppertop was then snatched by some bint with a mini skirt that must have been a belt in a previous life and breasts the size of rusty cannons. Katrina was most displeased and demonstrated this to the Recruit by doing a damn good impression of crushing his hand; Moore winced at the abuse of his hand but otherwise handled it stoically.

They danced together in the middle of the club as if they weren't mortal enemies, bodies working together, grinding and rubbing as they danced to the sensual music. As Katrina pressed her back against the well-muscled Recruit admiring the strong body, he wrapped his arms around her hips causing her to rest her head back against his shoulder as they swayed.

"You're after the rebels" He murmured in her ear "But do you really know who they are?"

Katrina pressed her body back further into the well-toned Recruit, letting her head fall back more as she turned and purred into his ear "Lunch"

The Recruit chuckled tightening his arms around her, enjoying the illusion of having some semblance of control over this dangerous and sensual creature in his arms, no matter how brief.

"Well let me tell you... they are Livewire and Vantabel, possibly two of the most dangerous rebels in London. Rumour has it that they are doing something to discover that little disappearing trick you Exiles pull. All in all they are bad new... and they've just spotted us" He finished wryly looking at the two now angered Rebels who had obviously recognised the Recruit.

The Rebel with green hair stepped forward as if to pound the Recruit but was held back by the taller one who had obviously realised that the crowded night-club could become Agent central should a fight break out. Instead they settled for glaring hatefully across the club at the Recruit and by association the raven haired beauty in his arms, unwilling to fight but just as unwilling to back down and leave, the result a strange glaring match between the two parties.

Katrina rapidly began to tire of the hate filled gazes and what she had quickly decided was a male, testosterone, "Alpha Wolf" pissing contest. Katrina made a noise in her throat half between a chuckle and half between a growl, silly rebels; didn't they know she was the only "Wolf" in this flock of sheep?

Keeping her head on Recruit Moore shoulder and his arms around her hips, she rolled her head to fix the two Rebels with a cold unflinching gaze of scarlet eyes that she held for an unnaturally long time without blinking making the Rebels shift in discomfort. Katrina smiled slowly and seductively showing just enough fang to make the Rebels back up a pace or two, Katrina giggled and gave the Rebels a coy wave as they fled out of the club.

She gave a content sigh and rolled her head back to its original position before speaking into his ear "Give me a reason for letting lunch get away"

"Because Rebels taste yucky?" The Recruit hazarded looking amusedly at the vampiress in his arms. "Besides, I thought you liked me" he stated mock hurt.

Katrina turned in his arms before kissing him solidly on the lips, Katrina's cool tongue danced around the Recruits warm mouth, she dragged her sharp fangs across the Recruits lower lip sending a flood of blood into their mouths before breaking the kiss. Katrina licked the aftertaste of blood off her lips before speaking to the stunned Recruit. "I don't date lunch" She stated mock sympathetic "Sorry"

She took a step back from the Recruit "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a few things to do before the night is done" She told him before walking off and disappearing into the night.

Moore stared at the space she had previously inhabited, fingers pressed against his lips to try and staunch the blood flow. "What a kisser" he muttered half sarcastic before going off to do something about this bleeding, before he attracted every vampire in a 5 mile radius...

* * *

Quentin browsed through the website, the usual array of myths and legends as well as people who claimed to be vampires. He had tracked a few of these so called "Vampires" down and all they had proven to be were normal people living out their fantasies and a total waste of time. No, he had come to believe that the true vampires only managed to survive in anonymity and used the false myths as a veil to hide behind instead of a culture or heritage. One of the few useful things about such sites is the other vampire hunters which frequent them with whom he could share information with, some of the more useful tidbits of information had come from fellow hunters. 

Now all he was looking for was that key piece of information so he could he could finally get his questions answered. The hunters were all people who totally believed in the existence of vampires and had seen them at some point in their lives; the nearest major group of hunters near him was at London. That city seemed steeped in myths of vampires, werewolves and many other creatures of legend, far more than any other city it seemed and perhaps it was just wishful thinking on his part but it seemed that the nearest source of paranormal activity to him just happened to be the largest.

He had actually gone to the lengths of renting an apartment in London, no cheap feat, and was going to spend the next few months if need be combing the streets over every night trying to find his vampires. Perhaps that seemed to be a little obsessive but the more time that passed without knowing the truth; the less he seemed to care about the lengths he was taking to find out.

There had been a recently suspicious body found completely drained of blood in central London, it was rare that they left bodies behind but most likely this vampire had either been disturbed while feeding and had be forced to leave a body behind. So he was packing to move into his new apartment as soon as possible, he would like to follow this trail before it went too cold to track anymore and again he was fortunate that London seemed to have such heavy vampiric activity.

Quentin yawned and checked his clock 2 am, it was late, he at least needed some sleep if he was ever going to get up tomorrow so he saved the relevant pages of information straight to his hard disk for more detailed look through later, once that was done he began logging off the computer and switched it off before heading pretty much straight to bed.

* * *

Katrina kissed a handsome Asian man passionately as she pressed him against a wall in a darkened alley, she had spent the last hour working on him enough so she could gain enough trust to get him in this situation. However it was in the early hours of the morning and it would be daylight soon, so she hadn't the time to be a picky eater. 

She kissed across his jaw and then down his neck, kissing and nibbling before she sank her fangs viciously into his jugular making him cry out in pain and shock as he fought against her. Katrina just used her deceptively powerful and unnatural muscles to hold him fast as she drank deeply from him until he slowly weakened and then fell limp in her arms.

After she drank her fill Katrina let the Coppertops dead body slump to the ground, watching it idly not feeling any compassion or emotion for her victims anymore and withdrew a switchblade from her pocket, slashing across the body's throat destroying her mark on it. Once she'd done the basic cover-up that she had performed so many times it felt instinct now, Katrina looked around for any other ways of concealing the corpse more. The simple slashing across the throat destroyed any trace of her fang marks and made it look like some random murder, as such it was taught to every fledgling vampire.

The police however, while stupid and ignorant, were not blind and would very quickly become suspicious at having hundreds of throat slashing murders on their hands, so they were also taught to take further measures in concealing deaths. Katrina's eyes lighted on a dumpster and she spotted an opportunity for burning the body beyond recognition. Dropping the body into the dumpster she pulled a lighter from the body's pocket and used it to set the mass of papers within the dumpster alight, waiting until she was sure the fire had taken before turning to walk away. A dark figure emerged from the shadows behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder without warning; Katrina instantly spun around and placed her foot in the figures face felling them.

"Shit! Damnit Katrina!" the dark haired male figure cried as he clutched his nose.

Katrina relaxed her fighting stance and looked at the figure on the floor in front of her. "Marcus?" She asked recognising the voice.

"Oww......yes me" Marcus replied irritably rubbing his injured nose.

Katrina thought she should apologise, she really did. "Why the fuck are you following me?" She demanded glaring at her partner.

"I'm not bloody following you anywhere woman" Marcus stated still annoyed as he got back on his feet.

Katrina sighed softly and kissed him gently. "Sorry I'm a little worked up tonight" she explained resting her head against Marcus's chest, and then she hit him lightly in the chest. "Although you should have told me you were hunting" she admonished.

Marcus smiled at the suddenly pacified Katrina who was resting against his chest; he had that effect on her, making her calm and at peace. "Did you have fun with the recruit tonight precious?" he asked idly while stroking her hair, he had caught the recruits scent on her.

"Nothing happened" she murmured sleepily into his chest before yawning in the most absolutely cutest way.

"Come on Kitten" Marcus said scooping Katrina into his arms "It'll be daylight soon and sunlight is not meant for such as us"

Katrina growled in appreciation as Marcus effortlessly carried her before sleepily murmuring "bed time?"

"Yes Katrina, bed time" Marcus answered as he carried her towards the nearest entrance to Lilith's den which was an abandoned underground station, an incomprehensible murmur from Katrina was the only reply he got as she fell asleep.

Katrina was one of those few vampires who fell into a deep sleep with the approaching dawn, it was quite worrying to Marcus especially as Katrina often liked to cut it extremely close at times and so just before morning he'd usually track her down, making sure she got back safely. Marcus shifted the sleeping Katrina in his arms slightly, he had to admit that she never fell asleep before she was safe somewhere unless he was around, perhaps because she felt safe around him but Marcus still worried for her at times. Once she fell asleep she was all but dead to the world and nothing besides the setting sun would arise her, he personally considered that a curse but was continually amazed at how Katrina could easily ignore it, just thinking of it as part of normal life which he guess it was for her. Marcus himself became tired and sleepy during the day but at least he could ignore it and stay awake during daylight hours should he choose to, although he'd probably be worse for wear the next day.

Descending down the stairs of the old station Marcus nodded to the singular Exile armed with a machine gun who stood at the entrance of the tunnel that lead down to the den, it was still a long walk to the den itself but at least this walk would be underground. This particular entrance to the den might seem under-protected but the tunnel like all the other routes to the den lead directly into a "security" room which was the Den's primary defence from attackers coming from the surface, blast doors, machine gun emplacements, significant cover for the defending force as well as near zero cover for the attacking force made this room a practical killing zone. The room was lethal enough even without the additional security of highly trained Exile guards and automated turrets which eliminated any hostile target, it became obvious why neither the Agents nor Rebels ever made a successful strike against the Den.

Katrina wasn't the only one to fall asleep during daylight hours; Lilith also rose with the setting sun and slept at the rising sun although unlike Katrina, Lilith was quite in turn with the emotions and mental states of people around her. Periods of high emotion or mental agitation woke her too, if anyone was seriously panicking, scared or feeling down right aggressive then she would be awoken However Lilith had also been awakened by over-frisky young Exiles befoe, having an angry, grumpy and downright pissed off ancient vampire interrupt you must not be a very pleasant situation. Marcus was surprised that they hadn't lost a few limbs, Lilith most definitely _not_ a morning person and it had become an unwritten rule to keep any and all "friskies" to night time when Lilith just consciously blocked the mental noise of the Den out.

Marcus's thoughts came to a abrupt stop as he came to the room he shared with Katrina, he'd somehow managed to walk all the way from the "security" room to their room without noticing at all which at 3 floors down was no short distance. Performing a miraculous feat he managed to get his key card into the room's door slot and open the door while still holding the sleeping Katrina, after managing that he stepped into the room and proceeded up the stairs onto the elevated second floor were they had their bed and laid Katrina gently down on it.

The room if it deserved to be called that was quite literately huge although not on the same scale as some of the other rooms in the Den, with it being large enough to fit a small house inside and by anyone's standard it was quite large for personal quarters. The room being roughly 45ft squared was currently decorated in a modern white with pine and stainless steel clean look, not the typical gothic style you'd associate with a pair of vampires and it surprised many who had seen it. In the left hand corner away from the door was an elevated second floor which stood 8ft taller than the rest of the room and covered about 15ft supported on stainless steel pillars, it was on this platform that both Katrina and Marcus had a pine futon with white silk sheets. Marcus gently stripped Katrina down to her undergarments and placed her under the covers before getting ready for bed himself.

Katrina could afford a room such as this because she was from the old world and had been around long enough to gather a significant sum of money during her life which whilst nowhere near to the same scale that some of the old ones had managed to achieve to accumulate during their lifetimes. Marcus himself was only 60 years old as an Exile, not even half of Katrina's age and he hadn't even existed as a system program when Katrina herself had chosen to walk the path of Exile. It was at times like this that it struck him how much she had lived through and survived, the older in age Exiles became the fewer in number they got as accidents, Rebels, Agents and even fellow Exiles claimed them, perhaps the reason why Katrina felt safe around him was it gave her an opportunity for someone to worry about 'Her' for once, Marcus mused.

Pulling back the covers back and getting into bed besides Katrina, he decided to stay with her for as long as she would have her and protect her to the best of his ability, although she scarcely needed it, like he had done for the past 15 years.


	2. Chapter 2

Katrina awoke with Marcus's strong body wrapped around her, smiling she brushed her hair out of her eyes and turned to look at him. His face was relaxed in sleep, looking so peaceful as he slept, Katrina propped herself up on her elbow and watched him as he dreamed. The cool white silk sheets lay pooled across their bodies as Katrina traced her eyes over Marcus's muscular body fully enjoying the sight, unlike some other Exiles Katrina had never had many partners in her life despite being alive since the old world, Marcus was her one and only love that had suddenly appeared in her life one day.

Her life was so full of pain, blood and betrayals spanning over 150 years that she had thought any spark of happiness in her life had been extinguished long, long ago and to find the one person in her life that proved that wasn't true had been a blessing beyond belief. To find the one person that proved you weren't done in life, the one who lived the same curse, the one who understood and whom you could place absolute trust in, it was what Katrina believed was what life was all about.

Marcus was all these things and more, if she wasn't the monster she knew herself to be then she would have said they were soul mates as he was the only person she had ever loved but since creatures like them didn't have souls then they were simply life mates, which was enough for her. She thought herself lucky to have him, shifting she rested her head on Marcus's chest, the sun had set below the horizon in the city above them, this she knew because she would never have been awake otherwise and would still be sleeping oblivious to everything.

She wanted to go back into the city tonight with Marcus, something the Recruit had said managed to attract her curiosity and vampires like cats seemed to have terminal curiosity, so now she wanted to hunt down some Rebels in order to find out more. Having the Rebels messing around with the backdoors was the last thing the Exile community need, that was their one and only means of survival, the Rebels would obviously fuck up at some point and reveal the backdoors existence to the Agents then everything would be over.

Marcus stirred disturbed by Katrina's movement, as he opened his eyes she smiled and kissed him. "Hey..." She greeted him sweetly tucking some of her sleep tousled hair behind her ear.

"Hey" Marcus answered back sleepily before frowning warily "What do you want?" he asked suspiciously.

Katrina pouted an effect which was only enhanced by her sleep rumpled self "Do I need a reason to be nice?" she asked innocently, stupid soul-mate thing, he knew her _far_ too well.

"This early in the evening..." Marcus answered "...yes"

Katrina sulked "Just because you're a grumpy sod early in the evening doesn't mean that everyone else is" she told him.

Marcus sighed "Alright" he said tiredly giving in to defeat; it wasn't worth arguing with Katrina as she always seemed to win.

"I just wanted a night on the town, you and me for a night of fun..." Katrina carried on.

"That sound nice" Mused Marcus as he thought about it.

"...And hunting down a few Rebels" Katrina conceded finally.

Marcus raised an eyebrow "That's an interesting outlook on fun... you haven't been hanging around Wraith have you?" He asked curiously.

Katrina frowned "No, but I heard something that I think needs investigation last night and I want to check it out. The Rebels are trying to mess around with the backdoors." She told him truthfully.

Marcus frowned worried "and you didn't tell Lilith?" he asked concerned.

Katrina looked exasphorated "Well I was asleep and also if Lilith got informed of every single rumour then she'd be buried waist high then nothing would get done. You only report something when you are certain, all I know is what that Recruit told me and it's entirely possible that he is just fucking with us." She explained, this city was Chinese whisper central and if you believed rumours then Neo was a women, Lilith was in love with Pandora and Morganna was their love child.

Katrina made a dismissive sound, she couldn't imagine that snake bitch of a first one being anyone's lovechild, Morganna could give the human Medusa of myth a run for her money and if there was a nastier son of a bitch than the Merovingian then it was Morganna.

"What was that for?" Marcus asked referring to Katrina's dismissive sound; he didn't think it had anything to do with him as she had that far away look in her eyes whenever she managed to derail her train of thought.

Katrina waved his question aside trying to work out how she had gone from rumours to planning an extermination campaign against reptiles; her mind scared her at times. "It's nothing" she told him.

"Right... so when do you want to leave?" Marcus asked as he got out of bed and began searching around for his trousers.

Katrina looked up at Marcus "In an hour or so, I want to get a shower" she answered while getting herself out of bed before walking down the stairs and into their "Apartments" bathroom, although technically being vampires they didn't need all of the facilities of the bathroom it was still full done up. The bathroom was done in a similar style as the main room of white, stainless steel and pine and had a large mirror adorning one of the walls despite the fact neither of them had a reflection.

Marcus gave up on finding his trousers and declaring them missing in action grabbed some fresh clothes out of the wardrobe, all black which was traditional vampire colours but who said he had to be original? He called out to Katrina telling her that he was heading out for a bit before taking one of the room's key cards and stepping out into the corridor outside.

Walking down the corridor he greeted a dozen other Exiles which he recognised as he made his way towards the den's rather massive kitchens, on his way there he had to pass through the 'Aquat' which was an absolute massive 750 ft room in which a large majority was taken up by a massive lake that sank down to almost 300 ft in places. It was a colossal aquatic environment simulated that of a natural lake almost perfectly besides the absence of natural sunlight, the lake was filled with specially programmed plants and animals which were designed to live in this paradise lake with its crystal clear waters with the Mermaids, who were the reason for its original construction and programming.

The other exiles used the remaining land space which existed around edges of the 'Aquat' as a relaxation place and a social meeting place because it was not only being an idealistic paradise with a nice beach along on side, grass and rocks along others but also because of it being located smack in the centre of the Den, near the kitchens and mess hall. Not helped by the beautiful and quite seductive Mermaids the beach area become a café and quiet relaxing place during its daylight sequence and an 'Exiles only' nightclub during its night sequence which was particularly popular with the younger Exiles. The best way to describe the area would be to call it the outdoors indoors, the 'Aquat' had a true day and night sequence that was out of sequence with the world above, it was roughly 6 hours difference between them which allowed the nocturnal members of the Den to enjoy the daylight but without any of that lethal UV light attached.

Marcus greeted Nimee, a Mermaid with long green hair who was current entertaining an elfish faced fairy and a young exile with sandy coloured hair, they both seemed fairly amazed by her various tricks and stories. One thing you had to give to the Mermaids is even though they couldn't do much, they were very definitely social creatures, always seeking out people and being in the thick of the community, Marcus was personally very glad for the handful of Mermaids that had left their oceans or Lakes and had come here to Lilith, they definitely had a way with people.

Leaving the 'Aquat' he walked down a brief stretch of corridor and arrived at the chaos that dared call itself the clans kitchen, the kitchen was a large affair again in its own right at 60 ft by 60 ft with Metal worktops and range cookers sat in a central island, it was obviously build to cater for the vast number of people that made up the clan. Half a dozen exiles slaved over the stoves and counters working on some culinary masterpiece of some sort, hardly any of these exiles would have ever caught anyone's attention if you had past them on the street, they looked like any other person you might meet on the street. Looking around the organised chaos of the kitchen Marcus managed to spot the target of his search and walked over to the 5 ft 6 inches brunette woman who was in the centre of the Kitchen as she worked with something boiling in a pot.

The woman cocked her head in his direction as he approached although how she had heard him over the noise of the kitchen was beyond him. "Hi Iris" He greeted the blind cook as he came up to her.

Iris turned towards Marcus smiling as she recognised the voice "Hey luv" she said as she wiped her hand off on a towel "What can I do for you?" she asked.

Marcus grinned "Well I came to be a cheeky bugger and ask for two decent breakfasts, think I can find them here?" he asked amusement clear in his voice.

"Ruddy rascal, 'specially when I'm try to get everyone's dinner cooked" She teased waving a rather pointy knife in his direction before using it to slice up some meat of dubious origins.

"I'm sorry to be a nuisance" Marcus apologised feeling guilty for giving the poor cook yet more work.

"Nah, don't be" She told him before joking "Don't get much opportunity to serve vampires around her, your not exactly my biggest customers"

"Jameson!" Iris called out to the kitchen, a messy haired man with his short hair sticking up in every which way turned around to look at her.

"Yeah?" he asked across the kitchen while dealing with something in a pot.

"Two English breakfasts now" Iris ordered, Lilith may control the den but the kitchen was Iris domain and she ruled absolutely, her word was more or less law in here.

"Err...right" Jameson replied momentarily lost before dumping his previous work on someone else and moving to carry out the new order.

Iris turned in Marcus's general direction "Be ready in 'bout 20 minutes" she told him before turning towards an approaching girl.

"Thanks" Marcus told Iris gratefully, the girl was Iris's adoptive daughter Lisa, the Exile 7 year old was literately half cat with the lower half of her body being feline as well as her ears, she was also covered head and toe or paws in flour.

"Gah, what a mess" Marcus said looking at the now near white girl, her blue fur and hair was coated in flour as well as her lilac dress.

"What?" Asked Iris curiously not yet knowing the complete disaster her ward had managed to transform herself into.

Marcus sighed "She's gotten herself covered in flour" he told Iris while looking at the little girl who could probably win a look alike contest for Wraith at this precise moment.

"Oh not again Lisa!" Iris despaired as she touched the girls face feeling the flour. "What have I told you about getting in the flour?" she scolded the girl.

Lisa sulked "I didn't mean to" She complained a definite purr present in her voice.

Iris ignored the girl and carried on worrying "How am I going to clean you up little lady?" she said fretting "You know what nuisance flour is in fur..."

"I'll give you a hand" Marcus offered having nothing better to do until his food was done besides it was the least he could do.

"You would?" Iris asked "You're a life saver"

They were about to set to the monumental task of cleaning Lisa up, who was standing there bored with her tail gently swaying and occasionally sneezing as her own efforts to clean herself up lead to her creating a dust cloud which aggravated her nose. When an impressive din started as someone knocked a load of pans over.

"Jennifer!" Iris shouted out having a good idea of the culprit.

She was answered by a redheaded Irish girl popping her head above the counter and a literary of curses. "I know, I know..." She moaned as she set about picking up the pots and pans which were scattered about.

It became fairly uneventful after that with both Iris and Marcus working together to brush Lisa down and get the flour out of her fur as best as they could although with the girl's fidgeting it became a task and a half. Once clean Lisa was bouncing up and down asking could go to the 'Aquat' and play with the Mermaids and Fairies, with promises that she wouldn't go elsewhere than the 'Aquat' she was off and after a few minutes Jameson came around with his food, so giving his thanks to both Iris and Jameson he headed back with the two plates.

He carried the food back though the corridor and down the stairs till he reached the room he shared with Katrina, opening the door with some difficulty he found Katrina sitting on the edge of the bed wrapped in a towel, she looked up from where she was brushing her hair out and noticed Marcus carrying two plates.

"Novelty" She murmured raising an eyebrow.

"Well it's not exactly very often that we get to eat something solid" Marcus explained as he set the plates down on the bedside table.

Katrina snagged a piece of fried toast with her fingers and ate it.

"Nice" she said smiling impishly as she nicked the other slice from the other plate.

"Oi... that was mine" Marcus complained looking forlornly at his lost toast.

Katrina stuck her tongue out between her fangs before she finished of her stolen piece of toast; Marcus grabbed his plate in an attempt to get some of his food before Katrina could devour it.

"So where do you want to go in order to find rebels?" Marcus asked stuffing some mushrooms into his mouth.

"Warehouse district?" Katrina asked rhetorically "Surely their will be a crew out there somewhere"

"Hmmm... don't we know were the Rebels are going to be?" asked Marcus, it seemed unlikely that the clan didn't have a clue on the Rebels current hideouts.

"Honey..." Katrina began "...if we knew were the Rebels where they wouldn't be there any more"

Marcus nodded "True enough I guess"

Smiling Katrina snagged one of Marcus sausages before getting up and walking over to her wardrobe dropping her towel on the way, leaving Marcus to enjoy the sight while she herself stood completely unconcerned about her nudity as she decided on her clothes, it wasn't like it was something he hadn't seen before. Deciding on going practical she went with black trousers, a halter top, her black trench coat and the various other articles such as underwear, socks, boots etc, a few rather unusual items were also added including a rather wicked ornamental knife that was even more wicked once you knew it was a code knife, such weapons were rare within the matrix as they required rather complex programming to create so therefore very few people could create them, which was fortunate otherwise they would be up to their eyebrows in program killing weapons.

Katrina herself had picked up the Code Knife for a rather insane amount of money and several major favours traded in, it was almost a status symbol amongst Exiles the code knife was a symbol of the Elite with the ability to injure or kill every type of program, system or not, abilities or not, in the Matrix the code knife was the ultimate weapon. Checking that the knife was sheathed correctly and wasn't about to slice her leg open Katrina nodded to Marcus that she was ready to go and the two of them left the room with the full intent on hunting down rebel prey.

* * *

A couple of hours later both Marcus and Katrina were crouching down on the roof of a warehouse watching a crew of Rebels enter and leave the building across the road from them, personally Katrina didn't understand the Rebels weird desire to hangout in abandoned warehouses, a nice 5 star hotel would do just as well and then they could get room service too. Shaking herself out of weird thoughts Katrina watched the some of the Rebels pull away in a black transit van while leaving three behind to guard the exit supposedly, a perfect opportunity if there ever was one, they waited long enough to ensure that the van was long gone and would not interrupt their fight with the guards once the operator told them that their crew mates were under attack.

"Right" Marcus muttered "Three Rebels there, I see one with a machine gun, one with a pistol and the others gone inside somewhere."

Katrina nodded thoughtfully "we'll take out the two Rebels outside and then question the one left inside, she cant have anything more than a machine gun up there so it shouldn't be too dangerous" She stated before grinning "Just try and avoid wooden shrapnel, I want a partner not a pile of dust."

Marcus rolled his eyes "I know, I did take vampiric survival 101" he answered back sarcastically before checking on the Rebels again.

"Good" Katrina said winking at him as she stood up and walked towards the very edge of the roof, it was a good 4 floor drop till the all but abandoned road below. "Shall we go?" she asked, not waiting for an answer before stepping off the roof and falling down to the ground.

Marcus rushed to the edge and leapt off after her, both of them landed with cat like grace on the pavement, couching down to the ground before spring up to their feet ready to engage the two Rebels who seemed pretty shocked at their sudden arrival but seemed to recover somewhat quickly when faced with two not human figures rushing at them. Katrina went after the nearer target which happened to be the Rebel with the machine gun, leaping onto the roof of an abandoned car she jumped down onto him and kicked the weapon out of his hand before getting caught into a hand to hand fight. That left Marcus with the other Rebel who happened to be armed with a pistol and a good 10 feet away, far enough for him to get several shots off before Marcus could close the distance, the result being Marcus having to perform a rather interesting bullet time dodge as he tried to avoid being shoot more than necessary, he ran towards the Rebel, leaning back into a skid letting the bullets fly over his head and body. When the skid slide him close enough to the Rebel, he dug his feet in letting his body swing upright and stuck his arm out, promptly clothes lining the Rebel sending him crashing down to the ground, the Rebel recovered quickly and sprung himself up onto his feet before letting out a fury of hits and punches which Marcus just managed to block.

Katrina was easily gaining the upper hand in her fight, she had speed, strength and grace as well as 150 years of experience which made the Rebel look like he was tripping over his own feet compared to her clean, efficient and powerful moves, it was almost a lesson if futility as vampires had the same strength and speed of Agents, they were also a hell of a lot more survivable then Agents except for their obvious weaknesses to sunlight and stakes, needless to say Mr Rebel was rapidly going to way of the dinosaurs. Admittedly the Rebel had got one or two good hits on her but he was now beginning to tire and weaken from injuries while Katrina was still going strongly, hitting him with bone crunching force in the stomach the Rebel almost collapsed and Katrina decided to finish it now, she slammed his head hard into the door of the car knocking him senseless before yanking the cars doors open she stuck his head in the door before kicking it closed with all her strength. Bearing in mind that Katrina was a vampire and easily had the strength to punch through a concrete wall, the door slammed into the into the Rebels head with horrific force, something also proven by the sickening sound of bone and flesh being crushed, signalling the snapping of the Rebels neck and/or the crushing of his skull, Katrina didn't pause to check as it was damn certain he was dead.

Marcus had the upper hand in his fight as well because of vampiric strength and speed although he was not doing as well as Katrina had been doing, she had significantly more experience than Marcus being more than double his age, therefore was a much harder opponent to beat in a fight as she knew most of the old tricks and had time to perfect her techniques. Marcus hit, kicked and punched as he fought the Rebel slowly gaining the upper hand as the Rebel began to tire but things were progressing slowly...too slowly for Katrina's tastes, as Marcus blocked a particularly complex move from the Rebel he was surprised to see the Rebel suddenly slump to the ground with Katrina holding a large dented trashcan in her hands, it was quite an impressive dent.

"You were taking too long" She offered in manner of explanation, casually tossing the metal trashcan aside and generally ignoring the Rebel on the ground, she couldn't be bothered to check if she had killed him and they didn't have much time before the main force of the Rebels returned, they had to hurry up onto the remaining Rebel if they were going to get any information at all, if he wasn't dead then when he woke up he might wish he was.

She turned and headed into the building cautiously knowing that the remaining Rebel would have heard the sounds of the fight outside and probably would have been warned by the operator of their approach so they were preceding carefully hoping to avoid being surprised and being put in an unpleasant situation such as being shot full of bullets, which you had to agree was just generally unpleasant in the extreme especially when you had to dig the bullets out of your body afterwards, Katrina shuddered.

Pausing to give the floor of the warehouse a quick look around neither of them was able to see the Rebel and the humming from the warehouses still working fans prevented them from tracking down the Rebel by the sound of her breathing or heart beat either, which was a pity Katrina always enjoyed the way her preys heart rate started shooting up as she neared their hiding place. Crates prevented full un-obscured view across the warehouse so it was possible the Rebel was hiding on ground floor, another possibility was the small office that resided in the corner and up some stairs which seemed more likely as there was a good chance that they had converted that telephone into an exit.

Katrina gestured to Marcus that she was going to check out the office and that he should check the ground floor with simple sign language. Marcus nodded and crept forward towards the crates while Katrina sneaked up the stairs towards the office keeping low enough to avoid being seen by the offices windows, vampires were naturally difficult to see even when they weren't trying to be stealthy, for some reason people simply seemed to overlook them, it was like their eyes couldn't seem to lock onto them as if they were visually slippery and their vision just slid off the vampire, therefore both Katrina and Marcus were a damn nightmare to see now they were both carefully sneaking around.

Katrina was in position to move into the office, she braced herself before kicking the door in with enough force to send in flying across the room and burst into the room ready to deal with anything that moved, one black cat meet an unpleasant demise from having a code knife embedded in its skull before Katrina got out of autopilot enough to realise that their was no 'real' targets in the room, she grimaced at the dead cat and hoped it was no ones pet.

Marcus had been sneaking around a bunch of crates when Katrina had smashed down the door with an amazing amount of noise before terminating the cat in a display of overkill, he was kind of glad it wasn't the Rebel as they did need information not a dead rebel, it was roughly around this point that Marcus discovered the location of the Rebel as a cry and half a dozen bullets came from behind him, Marcus snarled in pain as he collapsed and rolled out of line of sight obviously the Rebel being somewhere behind him.

Katrina hearing the noise grabbed her code knife and then grimaced again as the entire cat came with the knife, she shook the knife hard and the cat went flying off in a rather gory display of blood and code as the motion tore what was left of its skull apart, Katrina blinked at the rather disturbing display before shaking herself out of her reverie, this was mainly helped by another load of gun fire and Marcus's "For fuck sake!"

Jumping over the balcony down onto the crates below Katrina raced across the top of the crates jumping from one group to another until she came above the area when the Rebel was shooting at her rather pinned down partner and jumped, landing rather squarely on the Rebels sending both of the women sprawling across the floor, the Rebel was actually the first to recover and get back on her feet but Katrina cut her feet from under her sending the Rebel crashing back down to the ground.

What took place next was a rather unique version of a cat fight complete with hair pulling, claws scratching and high power matrix defying martial art moves, needless to say it was almost one for the record books except for such things regularly occurred in the Den between various female members who shall remain nameless, Katrina gained the upper hand as the female Rebel was no match for a vampire now she had lost her twin machine guns and Katrina finished the fight by slamming the Rebels head into a crate, not enough to kill her but definitely enough to ensure she would be sleeping for a while.

Marcus limped over to Katrina who was brushing herself off; she gave him a look over and gave him her honest opinion. "You look like hell"

He'd managed to get shot in the back several times and blood had poured soaking into most of his clothes, he would also have to have any bullets which hadn't passed cleanly through removed.

Marcus winced and gave her a fake sarcastic smile. "Thanks"

"No time" Katrina told him, the sound of squealing wheels in the distance told them that the Rebels were on their way back and would be here in less than a minute, she tossed him her Backdoor key.

"Go open the door" She instructed him, picking up her code knife which had been dropped during the fight and then picking up the unconscious female Rebel up as he went to open a backdoor.

Katrina carried the woman through into the backdoors and Marcus closed the door behind them, they managed to miss the commotion that occurred moments later as the returning rebels found one crew mate dead, another in critical condition and another seemingly vanished from the face of the earth although still alive according to the operator.

* * *

One of the returning Rebels was a large 6 foot 4 inch man who had short cut ginger hair known as Livewire, he was the Captain of the Banshee, one of the ships that patrolled the London area of the Matrix in an attempt to gain control of the vital resources the city processed, he also was really, really pissed at this precise moment.

"What the fuck happened here!?" He demanded to no one in particular.

It was suppose to be a rather simple mission to gain data on the latest Agent and Recruit movements from a contact and had suddenly resulted in the death of one crew member, the wounding of another and the loss of another, the operator hadn't been able to tell who was attacking the crew of the Banshee harping on about anomalous signatures which meant it wasn't Agents as they had very distinctive signatures or at least not Agents directly, those bastard Recruits were hard to detect or more likely it was Exiles. Exiles were practically ghosts in the machine, very rarely seen anywhere in the Matrix and therefore not much concern for the Rebellion, some in the council even doubted their existence however this city, London, proved to be the exception to the rule, here the Exiles were actually a bigger threat than the Agents and for some reason struck out against any Rebel activities in the city as they often seemed to have conflicting objectives. London practically confirmed the existence of Exiles to the human population and while most people took reports of vampires, werewolves and other monsters with a pinch of salt often believing that it was just the plain incompetence that resulted in the loss of crews, they could not deny such things existed.

The crew of the Banshee also had a more long term mission of researching the Exile threat and analysing how their numerous abilities in an attempt to understand, neutralise or control them to serve the rebellions purpose, one thing of particular interest was the ability of Exiles to suddenly disappear whenever danger showed up either in the form of Agents or their fellow Rebels. Little did the crew of the Banshee know that this particular line of research was about to land the attention of Lilith's forces on them, at the moment all the crew of the Banshee was concerned about was finding out who had attacked them and recovering their lost crew member if possible. Captain Livewire sighed, told his crew to grab Yaren, the injured Rebel, before getting his phone out of his pocket and demanding a new exit as the last one had been destroyed.


	3. Chapter 3

Katrina carried the unconscious Rebel over her shoulder in a fireman's lift or like a sack of potatoes through the door and into the secure area surrounding the north gate, several guns had been trained on her since the moment she arrived as well as the sentry turrets which quietly whirled over head as they tracked from side to side searching for targets.

"What have you got there?" Asked a rather scraggly looking Exile, lifting the end of his machine gun to emphasise his question while looking at the Rebel Katrina carried over her shoulder.

"A Rebel" Katrina asked sarcastically, Marcus came into the moment later his injuries already healed but himself still looking like shit. "We captured it for questioning, we think the Rebels have been attempting to gain access to the Backdoors" She elaborated more.

The Exile frowned, that wasn't particularly good news, why couldn't they ever say they were just torturing a Rebel for the hell of it?, why was it always an event of epic proportions?... okay maybe he was exaggerating. "Jack and Elisa go with them, make sure our guest is shown a nice room" He ordered two of the other guards in the room before waving Katrina and Marcus through.

"Do you want me to carry her?" Asked the guard Katrina assumed was called Jack, she gratefully handed the Rebel over and the guard Exile threw the Rebel over his shoulder with a grunt. "How much does she eat?" He asked complaining to no one in general, his companion Elisa just rolled her eyes, her being use to such complaining made obvious.

Katrina looked over to Marcus. "You'd better head up to the hospital ward otherwise you'll light up every metal detector for the next 20 years" She told him "Best get those bullets out your body, they are such a nuisance otherwise"

Marcus sighed "Right" he said wincing as he could feel the bullets moving around in his body, quite a disturbing sensation and then kissed her. "See you later"

Katrina watched Marcus as he headed down the corridor in the direction of the stairs which would lead one floor to the hospital ward, the hospital ward was located on the first floor beneath the main security checkpoint along with shooting ranges, one of the armouries, training rooms, guard rooms and machine shops because it was easier to bring wounded from the surface straight down into the hospital ward then bringing them all the way through the Den.

She was heading to the prison and interrogation rooms of the Den which where located in the centre of the Den for security reasons meaning that any rescue or escape attempts would have to travel through the entire Den and its automated defence systems making it unlikely that any such attempt would be successful, Lilith had designed her den to be a veritable fortress and was almost impossible to breach, the reasons for such an impressive fortress seemed just a personality quirk that Lilith held and none of the other first one had. After walking through the Den and passing several people who gave them interested looks as it wasn't everyday that you saw someone carrying a Rebel through the Den, they finally arrived at the Den's cell block in which each of the eight rooms doubled for both interrogation and holding prisoners, this was fine because the Den never really held a large number of prisoners, whilst others such as the Merovingian always seemed to have cells full of prisoners, Lilith never really bothered as she considered prisoners a security risk, prisoners were only kept as long as they were useful and then disposed of in whatever manner considered fitting.

The Rebel was dumped into the first available room, which happened to be the first room since all were available, and someone with sufficient interrogation knowledge was called for immediately, as all involved knew they only had a limited amount of time available to retrieve information from the Rebel before her crew mates pulled the plug on her. The Rebel was put in a chair and her hands handcuffed behind her back to the chair making it very difficult for her to move when she finally woke up, she was also given a drug which would promote the telling of information, the process in which information was retrieved from Rebels by Exiles was similar to that of the Agents, so much so that any Agent would understand and feel at home in one of the interrogations. The main objective was to hack the subjects mind and literately making them spill everything they knew, of course the Exiles had several unorthodox tricks up their collective arms which the Agents simply didn't know about or didn't not employ, if the interrogator managed to get the subject to talk freely without having to hack their mind open then all the better.

A serious looking female werewolf with long grey hair, whom was probably in her twenties entered the cell block along with a larger male companion dressed in a dark blue suit and tie, which he adjusted as he walked into the cell containing the Rebel, the two of them paused in front of Katrina, Jack and Elisa.

The grey haired werewolf raised an eyebrow before addressing the group. "We were called here no?" she spoke with a definite oriental accent.

"We called for an interrogator" Katrina answered, neither a statement nor a question.

"Then that would be us" The werewolf confirmed. "My companion here is amongst the best there are" she said nodding to her suited companion besides her.

"You're the Tokyo lot ain't you?" Jack asked curiously "I heard you were in town for the annual meeting"

"Yes, I'm Alyssa and this is Archon" She answered their questions, gesturing to her companion again.

"This is very touching but I was under the impression we had a time limit?" Archon asked sardonically, raising an eyebrow at the group.

Katrina wordless gestured for him to proceed in to the Rebel who was still handcuffed to a large metal chain.

"Charmer isn't he?" Elisa whispered sarcastically and gained a nod or two for her troubles.

Archon sat on the edge on a steel table near to the Rebels chair and poured himself a glass of water which was promptly splashed on the Rebels face awakening her, the Rebel startled searching around the room before beginning to struggle against the handcuffs.

"I'm going to save us a lot of trouble and just say I don't like you and you don't like me" Archon began "And don't bother trying to break free, I doubt the handcuffs will break so I wouldn't waste your strength, you might be needing it."

"Mother fucking program, let me the hell go!" The Rebel demanded still struggling against her bonds.

Archon raised an eyebrow "How about no?" He answered. "Now miss ..." He paused, waiting for the Rebel to fill in.

The Rebel glared at him hatefully "Arsehole" she spat

"Yes well Miss Arsehole, you're in a bit of a situation as of this moment. You have three choices as of now, you rebels seem to like these life changing choices so here you go, First of all you can sit there do nothing, say nothing and die when your crew mates pull the plug on you. Your second choice is somewhat like the first, you try to escape or do anything stupid and you die again, this time by us, you are nothing special, we can merely get another Rebel and another and another until we finally get the information we require." Archon calmly told the rebel, idly brushing down the front of his blue suit before continuing.

"Your third choice is a more interesting proposal, we process the ability to bring you back to the matrix permanently, think of it... a long and healthy life in the lap of luxury or dying on some ratty chair in a cold flying tin can where everyone will forget you existed ten minutes after your death, all you have to do is tell us what your ship is doing." He purposed to her.

"Not going to fucking happen! I wont betray my friends!" The Rebel shouted back defiantly.

Archon took this all in his stride "Really? You wont betray the same friends who are planning to kill you? Who will kill you?" He asked, the rebel seemed somewhat undecided about that and Archon used the chance to continue ahead. "What is so important that it is worth dying for? What could possibly be so great about Zion that so many people reject the matrix?" He asked the Rebel.

"Its Real! Not some fake world made up by the machines!" she answered passionately.

"Is it?" Archon asked rhetorically "How can you tell that the 'Real' world is really real? That it is not merely just another layer of a simulation, designed to trap those who rebelled against the system, yet another prison for human minds to be imprisoned within. If I was the mainframe it's what I would do."

The Rebel was looking extremely uncertain of herself and her position. "Your lying" accused the Rebel but her voice lacked previous conviction.

"Why should I lie when the truth is so much more satisfying?" Archon asked.

The Rebel glared at him some more.

Archon got out a gold watch and began swinging in on its chain like a pendulum "Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, your times running out Miss Arsehole"

The Rebel sighed "My name is Laverna" She told Archon defeated.

Archon nodded to her "Nice to see you've decided to co-operate miss Laverna"

The Rebel scowled but said nothing seeming rather dejected at the moment, Archon allowed her to sit quietly with her thoughts as her only companions, it was a long while before the Rebel spoke.

"What was that about returning to the Matrix?" She asked finally.

"We have the ability to convert your consciousness straight into digital allowing you to exist without the need for a physical body." Archon explained

Laverna shuddered "So you mean I'll become a program? My body will die?" She asked in horror.

"Well your body is going to die anyway, the moment your crew mates pull them together and realise that we've taken you, I'll imagine they'll pull the plug quite quickly after that" Archon pointed out.

Laverna lapsed into another bout of deep thinking "Whats the catch?" She asked trying to that out.

"Not much really, I don't think I have to tell you to avoid the Agents but besides that, you would be working for this clan under strict observation for quite a time to come" Archon informed her truthfully.

Laverna pursed her lips "Alright... I'm in, but do it quickly... I haven't much time left." She said slightly aggravated.

"Tell me, what is your ship currently researching?" Archon asked probingly.

Laverna paused for a moment in thought "We were working on the usual new weapons, communications, and intelligence gathering software... oh and something about you exiles disappearing. I assume you used the same trick to bring me here?" She asked before pausing "that's what your after isn't it?"

"Questions later, answers now" Archon ordered in a firm voice that made Laverna flinch. "How far have they got?" he asked all business.

Laverna licked her lips "We figured out you used the doors to create some sort of portal which allows you to travel almost instantaneously to another point in the matrix, the code that allowed this however was both hidden to an insane extent within the code of the door and encrypted to the extreme, it was likely if we had not been observing we would have never have noticed it." She told Archon.

* * *

Alyssa watched worriedly from the opposite side of the mirrored glass along with Katrina, Jack and Elisa.

"Fuck" She muttered as she listened to the Rebel explain what her crew had been doing whilst in the Matrix.

"That's definitely not a good thing is it?" Asked Jack in general to the universe and to anyone listening, fortunately this time someone was.

"No its not" Alyssa said distractedly, thinking things over her head and not enjoying the conclusions she was coming to. "You guys hold down the fort, I'm going to head off to find Wraith."

They watched a concerned and worried Alyssa march out of the room as if she had a purpose, intent on locating Lilith's second in command, someone far easier to get to than Lilith herself, and inform her of the very rapidly developing problem that was occurring.

"Think this is serious?" Elisa asked Katrina, looking to the much older Exile for experience, wisdom and hopefully reassurance.

Katrina nodded, deep in thought herself. "It won't be the biggest threat that this clan has ever had to deal with but should the information regarding the backdoors be leaked to the Agents, things would turn very bad, very fast." She told the younger Exile, shooting down any of Elisa hope for reassurance.

"Just hope it doesn't happen" Katrina informed them grimly.

* * *

Wraith looked around the devastated room, resisting the urge to explode and start throwing objects around the room right there on the spot. Mainly because it just wouldn't help and she was the right hand of Lilith, the person who people were suppose to look up to, responsibility, dignity and all that rot. Sometimes being in positions of power just sucked, she wanted a decent temper tantrum and she wanted one now damnit.

Taking a deep breath she glared at both Pyro and Ember whom stood in front of an incinerated room trying to look as innocent as possible while they both squirmed under her gaze whilst Wraith herself pondered _exactly_ how she would tell Lilith. Sure Lilith would probably take it in good spirit but telling your boss that a rather expensively decorated room had been completely destroyed by two juvenile delinquents was not particularly high on the wish list for any employee. She should have never allowed a show off male pyromaniac and a half-breed dragon girl who finds temperatures below 100 F cold in the same room, it was a recipe for disaster and a disaster which had become one of the TV rooms.

She was about to chew them both the younger Exiles out and condemn them to a life of harsh labour when they were saved undeservingly by a higher deity as Alyssa came into the room looking rather worried. Knowing that nothing except the direst circumstances worried the normally unflappable Alyssa she dismissed the pair of troublemakers with a wide selection of death threats and promises that she would send them to Antarctica for the rest of their natural lives. The last threat actually making Ember look worried and fearful, damn she was going to have to remember the girl's fear of low temperatures before she made such threats, at least she knew that Ember would think twice before attempting such a stunt again.

When the two had scuttled off, well... sprinted would be a better word, Wraith turned to Alyssa, ready to deal with something that was likely to me a much more serious crisis.

"What's going on?" She demanded straight down to business, her eyes searching over Alyssa face looking for any clue what she was about to say, it was times like this that Wraith lamented not having mind reading abilities.

The young grey hair werewolf looked nervous at the sharp tones in Wraiths voice despite the fact that it was often a tone she herself used to her subordinates. "Katrina found something you should see" Alyssa replied, fidgeting nervously.

Wraith frowned; this was unlikely to be good, the last time a vampire had found something it had turned out to be the corpse of a fellow Exile who had been brutally tortured by Rebels for several days before being executed, the memory of which still made her stomach lurch. "Lead on" She ordered to Alyssa, it would best get this over and done with as soon as possible.

Alyssa turned and prepared to leave the room only to stop curiously and kick a piece of charcoal furniture. "What on earth happened here?" she asked with a puzzled voice.

Wraith just rolled her eyes. "You don't want to know."

* * *

Ember and Pyro ran down the corridors of the Den eager to use Alyssa's distraction to avoid any punishment that Wraith might have dished out, she probably would have had them doing hard work until they paid off all the damage they had caused. Pyro in particular had become quite sick and tired of custom installing the Den's fire suppressant systems, especially when it was him who had to pay for all the parts. Only after they'd run far enough down the corridors and gone around a few corners did Ember turn around and thwack Pyro one across the head hard enough to make him stagger, Ember despite having an appearance of a 15 year old girl definitely packed quite a punch.

"What the hell was that for?!?" Pyro asked clutching his abused head.

"You're an idiot!" Ember accused glaring at him, her blue eyes narrowing while she put her hands on her hips.

"Huh?" Pyro asked intelligently while Ember rolled her eyes in disgust before turning around and storming off down the corridor.

"What the hell did I do?" Pyro shouted incredulously.

"Hello?!?" Ember turned and shouted at him "You started an inferno!"

"A small one!" Pyro protested "And you said you were cold" he accused.

Reminded of her temperature problem Ember's face became icy as she crossed her sweater covered arms and shivered feeling the cold of the corridor for the first time despite of it being 20 degree's. "You had no need to set anything alight!" She stated as coldly as she felt "Now if you excuse me I'm going to find somewhere warmer"

And with that she walked off down the corridor leaving Pyro staring at her before shaking his head. "Women" He said as if that explained everything and then walked back the other way to his room, hopefully not meeting Wraith until she calmed down.

* * *

Marcus walked through the large open doors into the Hospital ward, the ward itself looked like something that had been taken straight out of star trek with the medical beds and consoles aligned along the walls and in the centre of the floor, the information shown on the screens was radically different from anything in star trek as Matrix code scrolled down alongside images of DNA and metabolic rates. The place was also far large than any Medlab in star trek if Marcus remembered correctly with enough room to accommodate 50 people at once easily, possibly two or three times that in an emergency, various Medtechs and doctors walked around the few patients that occupied the beds either looking a PDA's and consoles or using various unidentifiable tools on patients.

A novel patient was a mermaid which was idly swimming in a small pool of water that was held behind either a force field, an invisible wall or was just programmed to stay as a solid containment without spilling out everywhere across the Hospital wards floor, something which would not have endeared her with any of the staff or patients.

The Mermaid under care was a beautiful specimen of her species with a unique black and red tiger pattern down her tail fin, looking to be in her late 20's by human comparison she was flirting with the Medical staff both male and female to an almost outrageous level but it was all taken in good humour.

The various other patients being attended to were a mixture of races and types, most of the bedridden ones were human exiles which were so closely related to humans and lived like them so much that they had caught a various range of diseases, fortunately the Den's medical staff major advantages over human doctors in having hundreds of years knowledge of future treatments and the fact that they could simply edit the code to fix most problems. Injuries such as broken bones were easily sorted by that method allowing the patient to walk out uninjured mere minutes after being admitted to medical, those that where admitted because they had caught an non lethal or dangerous bug or virus were allowed to simply go through the disease normally with drugs to help build their immune systems while those with something nastier had the disease or virus purged from their codes, a dangerous procedure in its own right.

As Marcus looked around the hospital ward, noticing a doctor and a patient who had obviously just been released but still looked somewhat green around the gills, quite literately in this case Marcus realised as he noticed some fluttering at the Exiles neck.

"Now Mr Silver I don't know why you insist on eating the custard in the mess hall, I have personally seen rubber cement that had less effects on the digestive system. No more custard for a month at least, do you understand me?" Ordered the doctor watching the gilled Exile closely, the Exile just nodded under the doctor's scrutiny before moving out of the hospital ward as fast as he could straight for the mess hall.

The doctor just shook his head before turning to look at Marcus. "Hello sir and how may I help you today? Perhaps you'll be one of the limited few around her that will actually heed my advice..." The doctor muttered sarcastically, leading Marcus towards one of the beds.

"So what is your complaint sir?" The doctor asked as he got down to work.

"Complaints?" Marcus asked confused try to work what doctor was on about.

The doctor sighed "You try to be civilized..." He muttered to himself before focusing back on Marcus "What is wrong with you?" He asked again, this time fair more simply.

"Oh.. I've got bullets stuck inside my chest" Marcus told him

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "Bullets inside your chest?" he asked theoretically as he pulled out his PDA from his pocket and tapped it a few times. "You vampires always come in with the weirdest conditions" He commented idly.

"Do things like this happen often?" Marcus asked curiously.

The doctor pursed his lips thoughtfully "With Werewolves and vampires yes because they often survive injuries that would kill a lesser Exile, unfortunately the debris and shrapnel often finds itself imbedded in their bodies" He chatted Idly while arranging a tray of sharp instruments. "You'd be amazed at some of the things we pull out of their bodies... Now what was your name sir?"

"Marcus why?" he asked curiously.

The doctor shrugged "I'm Dr Woodhall but you can call me James, I just thought since I'd be slicing you up that we might as well know each others names" he replied conversationally picking up his PDA the pressed the screen several times and Marcus felt his code shift disturbingly.

"What was that?" Marcus asked, wondering what on earth the doctor was doing.

"Oh.. I just deactivated you pain subroutines for a few minutes, makes digging the bullets out that much more pleasant" Dr Woodhall answered. "Don't worry they'll reboot after a few minutes, now take your shirt off and lie back on the bed" He ordered.

Marcus pulled his already ruined shirt off and lay down on the table.

"So where are you from?" Dr Woodhall asked as he began the first incision and began the task of removing the bullets from Marcus's body.

Marcus frowned "Here" he answered confused

Dr Woodhall shrugged "One of Alyssa's werewolves was in here earlier, rather unpleasant situation for him it was but he was from over in Tokyo. I find it fascinating how Exiles can say they're from the other side of the world and have travelled here in a few minutes, really gives you an idea how small the world is these days." He chatted socially whilst one and two bullets were pulled out of Marcus's body and dropped into a kidney dish by the side of the bed.

Marcus looked around the ward before a question came to his mind. "How many staff does this place have?" He asked curiously watching the various staff members moving from place to place whilst he tried to ignore the doctor digging in his chest.

The doctor removed another bullet before answering. "10 doctors, 7 male, 3 female and always three on a shift at anyone time. Medtechs?" He paused in thought.

"There's somewhere between 35 to 50 I think, but since they handle the code side of things mostly and all the really techy stuff, they are often drifting between different departments like Research or Engineering. There's usually ten or more on a shift at once but their numbers jump around a lot, I think there has to be at least one for each doctor on shift... not entirely sure... that answer your question?" He asked.

Marcus nodded and the doctor removed yet another bullet, putting it in the kidney dish.

A young Exile came into the Hospital ward and whistled. "Cool, this place is just like star trek" He said in awe, taking a look around at the place.

"More like theme hospital" piped up a Medtech as she passed the exile and gave her PDA to the female doctor that was currently attending the Mermaid, she gave her a disapproving look while the Mermaid obviously amused by the comment smiled and swam over to the edge of her pool, leaning on a seemingly invisible wall before engaging the Medtech in a conversation that involved giggling every few moments.

The single female doctor was tending the Mermaid because she was supposed to be immune to the Mermaids flirting and suggestions, that was the plan however one had to give the Mermaid bonus points for effort and she seemed to be rubbing off on some of the Medtechs, not literately since she was stuck in a pool of water but rubbing off nevertheless.

Dr Woodhall placed the last bullet and bloodied tweezers down in a kidney dish before moving to wash his hands at a sink that was present at the side of each bed. "You're done" He told Marcus. "Normally I'd stitch you up but you Vampires heal so damn fast there really is no point, just give it a few minutes to heal and don't drip blood on the floor."

The good doctor then turned face the young Exile who had came in moments previous. "What now? The bubonic plague? Ebola? Syphilis?" He muttered in a tone so sarcastic it could strip paint off walls before smiling brightly at the Exile. "How may I help you?" He asked in that bright happy way that can only be faked.

Marcus tuned the doctor and his new patient out, sitting up on the bed and cautiously poking the injury which was healing rapidly on its own; he grabbed his ruined shirt and used it to wipe the blood off before standing up off the bed. The injury had healed enough that it was not bleeding anymore, so Marcus decided now was as good as any to perform an escape so he got up and walked out of the ward, tossing his ruined shirt in the bin on his way out.


	4. Chapter 4

Wraith stalked down the corridor like a bat out of hell, with Alyssa hot at her heels, scattering Exiles who were walking down the corridor as she made her way towards the prison cell and her target, upon entering the prison section Wraith scanned the room with her eyes looking for the group of Exiles she knew had to still be here and strode over to where they stood watching the interrogation of the rebel on the other side of the mirrored glass. The group turned to face her as she approached, Jack and Elisa stiffening slightly at the approaching authority figure while Katrina turned to face her casually, Wraith didn't have the same high standing and awe inspiring ability she did with younger Exiles, with those from the old world.

"So what's been going on?" Wraith demanded from the group as she came to a stop by them, her voice full of authority and I-am-the-boss-here attitude as she glanced the group over, the group was a fairly reliable with none of the terrible trouble makers the clan seemed to accumulate.

"Not much since Alyssa left really" Katrina replied, chewing a nail and gesturing to the two on the opposite side of the mirrored glass a glance, Archon was still sitting on the edge of the table to the Rebel who was sitting in the chair however it seemed that Archon had deemed the Rebel trust worthy enough as she was no longer handcuffed.

"Has Alyssa told you about the Rebels activities in trying to discover how the backdoors work?" Katrina asked curiously, she wanted to know how much Lilith's second in command already knew and how she'd react.

"She told me on the way over" Wraith answered simply before stepping in front of the observation window and watching the two in the room with idly curiosity. "Has the Rebel said anything about how they managed to come across this information in the first place?" She asked trying to discover if there was an Exile on the lose that was leaking secrets to either the Rebels or the Agents, such a person would have to be taken out.

Katrina grinned and gave a faint nod before leaning back against the wall near the mirrored window and explained to Wraith. "One of the ships crew had an almost obsession you could say with the Exiles and managed to convince the ships captain to researching into that particular field, he apparently set up cameras and sensors in an area of town that was heavily frequented by Exiles and by luck managed to catch one of us using the backdoors before his captain got bored of his idiotic messing around, it went from there."

Wraith frowned "How far does this knowledge go? Is it too late to stop any of this information spreading?" She asked already planning contingencies for the worse case scenario, this den was an almost impenetrable fortress that couldn't be dug out without major expenditure on either the Agents or Rebels sides which would leave both sides weakened and easy prey for the other.

This meant they were safe for the foreseeable future, should the secret of the backdoors be discovered and Exiles could no longer rely on the back doors for protection, not that any of them could predict far into the future besides the Oracle and she was not on Lilith's happy book, the two being rivals long before either Matrix's were created.

Katrina looked relieved, easing Wraiths fears and natural inclination to believe in the worst case scenario that all leaders have "Fortunately the crews illicit deviation from standard research topics and the Rebel general attitudes toward unauthorised AI or Matrix studies means that the crew would have hidden any information that they had gathered on the backdoors until they were 100 certain they had stumbled onto something major." She repeated the information she had learned from the interrogation to Wraith. "If we strike quickly and destroy all the information, we stand a real chance of dodging this bullet"

Wraith looked thoughtful "I agree, there is no time to waste however if we attack and don't take them out then they will most likely transmit the information straight to Zion. I'll get our scouts to keep an eye out on the Rebel ships, when our target re-enters we'll strike most of her crew in the Matrix whilst simultaneously attacking them in the real world." Wraith said, coming up with a better plan than just "attack" on the spot while her mind went over various tactical scenarios refining them hopefully into something that would work.

Katrina from her place leaning against the wall frowned before asking in confusion. "We don't have any forces in the real world do we?"

Wraith sighed, she knew full well that Lilith clan had no one in the real world and her plan would require negotiating with Rogue machines in the real world who would not be precisely eager to face one of the Rebel ships and their EMP's. "Don't worry about that... I'll work something out" she dismissed that minor problem till later turning her attention to a more pressing one.

"What is the deal with the Rebel?" Wraith asked, looking through the window again at the Rebel. "She doesn't exactly look like she is under duress, so what's she getting out of this?"

"Life.. She gets to live beyond the time it takes for her crew mates to pull the plug" Elisa told Wraith entering the conversation for the first time, finally getting an opening in the conversation, she nodded her head to the room beyond the glass where the Rebel was visibly agitated.

"I think we should convert her soon, she seriously has very little time left" Jack added in his opinion before Elisa had the chance to verbalise it herself.

Wraith looked at the Rebel for a long while, trying to make a decision either way to whether the Rebel should live or die, finally she sighed.

"Alright, Alyssa since you were the ones that you offered you can deal with the Rebel" Wraith ordered her companion. "I have to organise the scouts and plan the attack on the _Banshee, _you lot can take a break for a bit but stick around since I want you on the team later, you'll be as good as any"

With that Wraith turned and left the group to sort their own problems out amongst them whilst she attended the more pressing details, she first had to inform Lilith before somehow trying to convince the Real world rogues that attacking a Rebel research vessel was in their best interests... that in itself would prove to be an interesting experience, she truly loved her life...

"Right..." Alyssa said trying to take control of the situation after being dropped in it. "You lot... do whatever" Alyssa dismissed them to go about their own business before walking down the corridor and into the interrogation room with Archon and Laverna, the Rebel. The pair looked up as she entered the room and she stared at them both.

"Its my understanding that you were to give us the information about your ship in exchange for being an EAH?" Alyssa asked of the Rebel, she already knew the answer but wanted to see the Rebel answer herself.

"EAH?" Laverna asked with a frown, not understanding the term.

"Exile Affected Human, it's the tech speak for a human who has been changed by an Exile. The most common forms of these are the Vampire and Werewolf EAH which despite being weaker than their program forms still hold significant advantages over unaffected humans." Alyssa explained as she walked towards the Rebel.

"The myths about Vampires and Werewolves turning humans are true?" Laverna asked in amazement, having not believed that part of said myth.

Alyssa grinned at that. "Yes there true and your going to have a chance to experience them first hand" Alyssa informed the rebel with a tone of amusement in her voice as she stepped well within the rebels personal space.

"Now... what was your answer?" Alyssa asked one last time looking the rebel in the eyes.

Laverna locked eyes with Alyssa for a long moment before replying. "Yes.. yes I am"

Alyssa brushed Laverna's hair away from her neck, leaving it uncovered.

"This is going to hurt... a lot quite honestly..." Alyssa told Laverna, who merely nodded mutely at that, before pulling her head to the side and suddenly biting deep into her neck.

Laverna despite being prepared for the bite, yelps and pulls away, staggering away with her hand slapped over the bite mark in shock before her eyes roll into the back of her head and she collapses to the floor.

Alyssa knelt down beside the Ex-rebel and placed two fingers at her neck, checking for a pulse just in case. The pulse was strong and firm against her fingers and she nodded satisfied, Archon walked up over the two.

"She going to make it?" He asked in slightly uncharacteristic concern.

Alyssa looked up at her underling and smiled faintly. "You know if I didn't know better I would accuse you of caring..."

Archon looked affronted. "Ma'am?"

Alyssa shook her head as she stood up. "Take her to the medical ward, make sure she's fine and tell the doctors to put an implant in her, just in case."

Archon knelt and scooped up the fallen rebel in his arms. "Its done" He said, confirming that he'd heard her orders before he carried the rebel out of the door and towards the medical ward.

Alyssa watched the pair leave the room for a moment before settling down to her own tasks, she needed to check in with Tokyo to see if everything was alright although she was equally sure that Lorelei could handle her crew whilst she was gone, it still felt better to check. She strode out into the corridor outside the cell where the others where still standing, obviously been watching her turn the Rebel and not bothering to go anywhere else.

Katrina raised an amused eyebrow at Alyssa. "The neck?" she asked with barely restrained mirth.

Alyssa shifted and crossed her arms across her chest, instantly getting where the damned vampire was coming from. "Well where else was I suppose to bite her?" she asked defensively.

Katrina's eye sparkled naughtily and Alyssa groaned inwardly, now was not a time she wanted to get into various vampiric kinks. Fortunately Katrina took a slightly more discreet route than Alyssa's mind was taking and answered with a simple "I could answer that" retort, still that was enough to get a smirk out of the guard exile called Jack which in turn was enough to earn him a solid glare from Alyssa.

It was roughly this moment that Marcus decided to wander into the cell block from the medical ward looking rather good without his top, gaining various admiring looks from the females... mainly from the young Elisa who was blatantly adding that to her fantasy life.

"So what have I missed?" He asked as he came close to the group

Katrina looked rather carefree to his direction. "The Rebel joined Alyssa's crew plus her ship definitely did know about the backdoors... Seems we hit the right ship" She said with a similar carefree attitude whilst Marcus spluttered through her explanation.

"The Rebel?! Joined us?!? How? What? Where? And when?" Marcus asked, confused and disbelieving as hell.

"She didn't want to die, she began an EAH, here, about 4 minutes ago" Katrina calmly said, ticking each of his questions off on her fingers.

"I don't believe it..." Marcus muttered

"Get used to it honey" Katrina advised. "Its not like I ran away with the milkman"

Elisa scowled. "You know they don't deliver milk here anymore... not since someone ate the milkman" She told with some annoyance. "We have to go out occasionally and collect some for the kitchens... and I don't mean a little... it's like a tanker of the stuff."

"It's a big clan" Alyssa put in. "With 300 odd people there not likely to just need a few pints of milk are they?"

"Suppose not" Elisa reluctantly let out

"Makes me glad I only have to deal with 46... 47" Alyssa said correcting herself as she remembered the new EAH that she had just gained. "Well, I'd best be off" She told the group before walking off into the depths of the Den.

"I'm going down to Library, want to come?" Katrina asked the others, who were standing around looking rather bored.

"Nah" Jack answered with some reluctance. "We're still on duty, so we really should head back before someone comes and shouts at us."

"Yeah.." Elisa murmured before moving to leave. "Well, we'll see you guys around I guess."

"Bye" Katrina gave them a half wave as they left to head back to their post.

"Hmmm.... So you're going to tell me more about this rebel thing?" Marcus asked curiously, hoping to work out what had happened whilst he was in medical.

"Sure, we'll talk on the way to the Library... I want to look a few things up." Katrina told him as she headed out towards the library leaving Marcus to catch up.

* * *

Ember lay draped across the rug in front of the large fireplace lazing in the rare warmth it provided for her; very few things could provide enough heat to make her feel warm and a raging fire just happened to be one of those things. So she enjoyed the simple joy of being hot for once and not having to be wrapped in layers upon layers of clothing, at the moment she was wearing a simple tank top and jeans letting the heat play across her bare arms. She had a book in front of her that she occasionally flicked the pages of as she read through it; she absentmindedly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as it fell in the way before continuing with her book.

A little further away from the large fireplace that dominated the common room the Werecat triplets also laid lazily across one of the large sofas that surrounded the fireplace, they too enjoyed the heat produced by this massive fireplace although the cold didn't bother them as much as Ember. The triplets seemed to enjoy the fact they were all identical, they had originally been a trio of programs all designed to perform identical tasks, so it made sense that when their series became obsolete all three of them would end up looking identical and having the same abilities. They took that to the next stage by deliberately wearing identical clothing and having the same hair style, even their names were similar Kat, Kita and Kitty; all in all they enjoyed to cause mischief and confusion from people mistaking their identity.

So the triplets lay sprawled across each other lazily in true cat style simply basking in the heat of the fire, stretching with feline grace Kita lazily opened an eye and looked from her position across her sister's lap and looked at Ember. "You enjoying that?" She purred to Ember half lidding her eyes again.

Ember turned and flushed guiltily from where she had been stretching and bathing in the heat, her book forgotten for the moment in the warmth.

Kita just chuckled "Don't worry about it kid" she closed her eyes sleepily "Being warm 's nice"

Ember lay back down on her front across the rug while turning to look at the Werecat that was lazing sprawled between her sisters "How long have you been around?"

Kita smiled "Who us? We've been Exile for almost 30 years now. It's been an interesting life, well worth it despite some hard times. M'names Kita" She murmured and then looked Ember over from where she lay. "You're fairly recent aren't you?"

Ember lowered her face letting her long brown hair fall in front of her face in embarrassment perhaps before lifting her head back up and looking Kita in the eye. "It shows huh?" she asked almost ruefully.

"Not so much as you'd imagine" An identical voice answered, at first Ember had through that Kita had answered but her mouth hadn't moved, at the end of the couch another one of the triplets yawned and looked at Ember, this one Ember assumed had spoken. "You still have naivety and innocence of younger exiles though."

"You make it sound like a bad thing Kitty" Kita scolded her sister "I think its sweet that someone can keep innocence in this place for long"

"So how long have you been an Exile little one?" asked Kitty trying to pin an age on Ember which was difficult to do when Exiles physical shell rarely changed.

Ember tucked some hair behind her ear shyly before answering "Only for a few months"

"Its nice to know you've chosen our little group over someone's like the Merovingian's" Stated Kitty looking at her sister Kat who was sleeping soundly through this little interchange.

"I started off in London" Ember admitted "but I've heard stories about the Merovingian, I don't think I want to work for him no matter how well he pays"

Ember chewed her lip nervously, unsure if she really should be asking this next question. "How can Lilith afford to keep people like me if I don't do anything to help?" she asked quite worried, her room had a custom installed heating system making it possibly the hottest place in the entire Den.

The heating system had been a godsend, she shuddered to think of how she had survived on the streets before the vampires Raven and David had found her and brought her before Lilith.

The cost of the heating system had made her eyes bulge, she had never seen that many Zero's in one place before. Whilst part of her wanted to believe that Lilith was doing it out of the good of her heart, the rest of her doubted that vampires just did "goodness" and she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Kita chuckled lazily in that reassuring way of hers as if Embers worries were silly. "Lilith is one of the old ones alongside Mero, Vorteau, Pandora, Morganna, Baal and the oracle" said kita carefree, spitting out names that only half of which did Ember know.

"Being around so long means that they have had time to accumulate fortunes and power. If your worried at feeling useless, don't. You'll eventually find something you enjoy and some way to contribute." Advised Kita as she continued, Ember taking in what she was saying and relaxing a bit.

"So what do you three do?" asked Ember curiously looking at the lazy cat like triplets and trying to put a job to that.

"Hunters, trackers, scouts and sentries. We're Werecats, we have sharp enhanced senses and unlike Werewolf's, we can transform at will." Kita told Ember before shifting around on the couch to find a new comfie spot.

Kitty grunted as her sister managed to put a knee in her stomach while Kat murmured sleepily before rolling over and falling asleep again, Kitty rolled her eyes in disgust at her sister before explaining something to Ember. "We don't do too well in a fight; we're built for speed and agility. Leave the fighting to vamps and 'Wolves, they're better built for it."

Kita look disgruntled at her sleeping sister. "She could sleep though an earthquake" She said half disgusted, half in awe at her sisters sleeping habits.

"You forget she has" pointed Kitty remembering that particular incident.

Ember laughed "She didn't?" She asked incredulously, unwilling to believe anyone could sleep through that.

"She did" Confirmed Kita "Although technically that wasn't an earthquake, just a really big explosion" She mused.

"Rise and shine sleeping beauty" Murmured Kitty before she pushed her blissfully unaware and sleeping sister off the couch, Kat hit the floor with a thump and shot bolt upright.

"I didn't shave the werewolf!" she blurted.

That was it, everyone burst out laughing while Kat looked around grumpily.

"Very funny guys" Kat grumbled rather put out that her naptime had been cut short.

Ember was having trouble breathing, she was sure her face was the same colour as a tomato and having a sleep tousled, grumpy faced werecat glaring at her, reminding her bizarrely enough of grumpy the care bear didn't help.

Bring her laughter under control Kita chuckled "I'm sure there's an interesting story behind that"

Kat pouted, playing the injured party while Kitty burst out laughing again.

"I'm not going to be able to get rid of the images of a bald werewolf before the meeting with Alyssa" She declared.

"Well that's going to make the annual meeting interesting" Kita stated before a horrifying thought came to her.

"You didn't _actually_ shave Alyssa?" She asked.

Kat's eyes widened "No!" She protested "I'm too young to die!"

Ember watched the byplay between the sisters with interest before something came to her. "Who is Alyssa?" She asked not recognising the name.

"Alyssa is a female werewolf; she's only been around for 15 years but already controls Lilith's assets in Tokyo. She's quite a tough cookie; you'll recognise her from her distinctive waist length grey hair." Kat informed Ember before frowning.

"Have we been introduced?" Asked Kat curiously, not remembering the girl she was talking to from anywhere.

Ember opened her mouth to answer and then closed it again puzzled. "Erm... actually no, I'm Ember" She offered tucking her hair behind her ear again; she was going to have to tie it back or something.

Kat looked at the girl with brown hair lying on the rug in front of the fire, who she now knew as Ember. The girl had a strange scent kind of like fire and brimstone, 'strange' thought Kat 'She doesn't look like a demon type' and then remembered she had forgotten her own introduction.

"Oh, I'm Kat and these are my troublesome sisters Kita and Kitty" She told Ember pointed each in turn; the sisters gave half hearted little waves.

"We've meet" Ember said smiling.

"While I was asleep I guess?" Kat asked rhetorically before looking between Ember and her sister mischievously. "Hey, have you heard of the time when these two" she pointed to her sisters "managed to get themselves trapped _Naked_ in an elevator whilst Agents combed the building top to bottom looking for Rebels..."

Kita and Kitty groaned as their sister began a tale of their humiliation and mortal embarrassment.

* * *

In the rather massive 'Aquat' a group of younger Exiles were taking the time to relax, off from her shift at the kitchens the rather disaster prone red headed Exile Jennifer was sitting on the rocks at the edge of the lake along with the Den's resident Pyromaniac known creatively as Pyro and Nimee, a mermaid with long green hair that matched well with a sweeping blue/green tail that sparked as the Mermaid idly swished the bottom of it in the water below.

The Mermaids were extremely social Exiles, despite being limited to the crystal clear lake they had a very tight gossip net and always seeming to know what was going on, usually before the people involved themselves knew. They always offered an ear and would help wherever they could; this was probably the reason why Lilith had brought the Mermaids here, as they performed absolute wonders for moral even in the darkest and most despairing times. They didn't judge people either, considering vampires and others similar types as merely predators, not monsters unlike others such as angels did.

At the moment Nimee was sitting on the rocks near the edge of the water listening to the two younger Exiles bemoan the various banes of their existence, they weren't alone as twenty or so other Exiles could be easily seen lounging in various places around the pseudo beach slightly further down the lake edge where the rocks finished off and the water was much shallower. The shallow water was quite a discomfort for the actual Mermaids despite how land dwellers preferred it, it provided very little room to manoeuvre and as it provided the potential to get 'stuck', it gave Mermaids the equivalent of claustrophobia.

However from looking down at the beach at Lisa and Crystal, both the children were suffering various discomforts just to play with each other, Lisa being half cat had a disliking of water whilst the young Mermaid Crystal disliking the lack of room to easily move. Still they got on well Nimee observed as she watched the pair laughing and playing rather carefree in the water, Crystal's pet dolphin joining in a ball game. Whilst Land dwellers had dogs, cats or birds as pets the Mermaids had three dolphins which shared the water with them, they themselves had been modified to survive in this new habitat and as a side effect, which nobody couldn't tell was deliberate or not, they were intelligent and could even talk existing on the border of being actual Exiles in their own right.

Nimee was shaken from her musings by a stone splashing into the water; she turned to watch Jennifer idly trying to skim stones across the surface of the water, most of which barely managed a single bounce before sinking below the water.

"Do you know what really annoys me?" Jennifer asked the pair of them with the air of someone about to make a point. "It's the lack of trust people have in me, every time something goes wrong its always 'Jennifer!', they wont even trust me around anything vaguely complicated and that damn man Jameson has begun calling me 'Murphy' for Christ's sake"

"Who's Murphy?" asked Pyro confused and with a frown on his face, Nimee was listening to everything the girl said with an amused attention and secretly agreeing with the others that perhaps the girl was a bit of a disaster zone, almost unnaturally so.

Jennifer rolled her eyes in disbelief and annoyance "You know? Murphy? As in _Murphy's_ law?" She said stressing the name 'Murphy'.

"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong and at the worst possible time" Nimee supplied the law itself helpfully in an attempt to jog Pyro's memory.

"Oh that one.." Pyro said remembering it from somewhere and then grinned before commenting cheekily "Sounds like you alright"

Jennifer scowled and hit him none too gently on the shoulder before returning to throwing stones into the water.

"Does it really bother you that people are calling you Murphy?" Nimee asked carefully whilst playing with the water with the edge of her tail.

Jennifer sighed. "What bothers me is no one is giving me a chance not to screw up" She told the mermaid

"Well you do screw up quite a lot" Pyro admitted.

Jennifer sighed and shot him a glare. "Do you want to be hit again?" she asked him before going back to the stones.

Nimee looked out at the stones Jennifer was trying to skim across the surface of the water, thinking. "Maybe your just not cut out for your current job? Maybe there is something else out there that you'd do better at" She suggested as she looked at the red haired girl sitting besides her.

"Maybe your right" Jennifer conceded. "But what else would I do?"

"Anything you want" Nimee told the younger Exile "The world is full of opportunities"

Jennifer looked down the beach to where Lisa and Crystal were playing in the shallows along with Crystal's pet dolphin. "I wish I was that young and carefree." She said wistfully, looking at the pair playing about in the water.

"It must be fun to just play all day and not have to worry about any work" Pyro piped in, looking at the pair too.

Nimee shook her head before telling them with a resigned voice "It's a double sided blade, Crystal for one hasn't aged a day in nearly 20 years and will probably remain a child for the rest of her existence."

Pyro half choked despite the fact he wasn't actually eating or drinking anything. "You mean she's older than me?" He asked in disbelief.

Jennifer raised an eyebrow too, she was a few years old herself. "She's older than me too" she commented idly. "I knew she was older than me as she's been here since before me but 20 years is quite a long time"

"One of the few things that never changes in a hectic clan such as this" Nimee said "Beside you should have long learnt that you can never rely on a Exiles appearance to work out their age"

"Oh I have" Jennifer reassured Nimee as she watched the kids playing.

Lisa splashed as she threw the large inflatable beach ball to Crystal, who caught it easily, back swishing her tail in order to remain upright, Crystal's pet dolphin swam easily and quickly through the water despite its relative shallowness. Lisa giggled as Crystal's pet dolphin prodded its nose into her stomach, before sending clicks of echo sound through the water and Lisa by relation, Lisa patted the dolphin's nose away and it went off swimming around her clicking happily.

Crystal threw the inflatable ball at her dolphin, which hit it with the tip of its nose flipping the ball back into the air; the dolphin back pedalled positioning itself under the ball and then balancing it on its nose carefully as the ball came back down. Lisa laughed delightedly at the dolphins antics and Crystal grinned with pride as her pet pulled of the stunt perfectly, balancing the ball carefully on its nose for several moments. Crystal swam up to the dolphin once it had dropped the ball, wrapping her arms around it before gesturing to Lisa to swim in close to her and the dolphin, once she came close enough Crystal put Lisa hands over the dolphin's dorsal fin so it could pull her along. Crystal then split off and went swimming away at a blistering rate with the dolphin and Lisa in tow right behind her tail as they swam out deeper into the water.

"Its kinda like watching that TV show Oceana, you know? The one with the dolphins and the kids?" Pyro commented before turning to look at Nimee "I suppose you don't have a TV being a water dweller and all"

Nimee hmph'd. "I do actually own a TV you know... I have this nice underwater cave with an air pocket which I sleep in, I keep the TV there and I cant believe you watch such a lousy show" Nimee said with some disgust turning to give Pyro a 'I don't believe you watch that crap' look.

Jennifer got a strange look of confused thought on her face "How on earth did you get delicate electronics that deep underwater without getting them wet?" she asked picking up on an interesting fact.

Nimee turned to look at the red head and grinned wryly. "Where there's a will, there's a way" She told the girl "Water proof bags help a lot too"

Jennifer nodded thoughtfully as she accepted that.

"Still a bloody bugger to get 'em down there" Piped up a sweet sounding voice from down below at the waterline.

The group looked down at the waterline and saw another adult mermaid, this particular one with purple tail and wild black hair which shone dark purple when the light caught it giving her a very exotic look, not that the mermaid wasn't exotic in the first place but this accented it.

"Hello Delphi, how are you doing?" Nimee asked the purple mermaid who had just joined them, Delphi had her head and shoulders out of the water and was leaning on the edge of the rocks using her elbows whilst looking up at the group with interested amethyst eyes.

"Oh I'm doing great thanks" Delphi beamed "I meet this cute guy who showed me his.."

"Delphi!" screeched Nimee horrified "We don't need to know that!"

Delphi looked puzzled for a moment until she finally twigged on what Nimee was going on about. "Ooh! Not that Nimee!" Delphi cried out half amused, half horrified. "I meant his guitar, he's really quite talented.." She trailed off wistfully.

Nimee blushed and ducked her head so her hair obscured her face before coughing. "Ahem... well.. besides that.. what else have you been up to?" she asked hoping to move the conversation onto a new topic.

Delphi raised an eyebrow. "You mean besides wondering exactly what goes on in your head?" She asked sweetly and innocently hoping to further fluster Nimee however all she got was a health glare in response.

Delphi sighed overdramatically before continuing. "You know what I've been getting up to! Its not exactly like I can walk out into the town for a night of crazed sex now is it?" Delphi asked theoretically before frowning "I just ruined any innocent appearance I may have held with that, didn't I?"

Jennifer grinned at Delphi "More than a little, its good to see you again Delphi" She greeted the mermaid warmly.

"Ah yes, the red headed rascal, I was wondering where you'd got to. I assume their keeping you busy in the kitchens as always?" Delphi asked.

Jennifer rolled her eyes. "You have no idea" She lamented.

Before Jennifer had an opportunity to begin a tirade against her current job, Nimee cut in and introduced Pyro to Delphi, in an attempt to not fall back to previous conversations.

"Ah hello young man, I'm Delphi, the good looking one of us aquatic girls" Delphi introduced herself cheekily, letting Nimee roll her eyes in disbelief as she lifted her hand off the rock and offered it to him to kiss.

Pyro looked at her hand in confusion, after several moments Delphi let her hand drop back down onto the rock with a sigh and gave him a frustrated look. "You really need to work on your gentleman skills, even Nick knows to kiss a ladies hand" She chided him.

Nimee looked interested at that. "Nicks the name of guitarist?" she asked

"Yes he is and no... you can't do whatever it is your planning" Delphi warned Nimee giving her a stern look, under which Nimee tried to look innocent.

"Would I do anything?" Asked Nimee mock innocent, Delphi raised an eyebrow and said volumes with her silence.

Jennifer was looking out across the lake. "Should they really be out that far?" she asked referring to Crystal and Lisa who were now quite far out and definitely in deep water.

"They'll be fine. I doubt Crystal will let Lisa get into trouble, water is our natural habitat so we're pretty good swimmers" Delphi answered with some humour.

Ross swooped in and grabbed Pyro dragging him from the group, they passed a large black preying mantis type exile, it was one of the few non human Exiles as most survived by blending in with the normal human population. "Hey! What??" asked Pyro as he was dragged off unceremoniously.

Ross stopped and turned to face Pyro "You should thank me for saving you from that never-ending female tide" he stated

"I like the never-ending female tide" Pyro complained "besides that was only 3 women"

"Never mind" Ross dismissed "Here's what's going on, Jameson is having a big fuckoff party on Friday, 'The Queens Arms' up in the city, you planning on being there?" He asked.

Pyro gave his future plans a quick check, it so far consisted of get up, eat, drink and sleep. "Yeah sure" He answered.

"Right mate, Well cya there then" Ross said before wandering off to somewhere, Pyro wasn't go to even bother working out where.


	5. Chapter 5

NXTR-78RJ963 was very old and experienced, it was not stupid, it was difficult to be stupid after surviving for over three hundred years despite the rather solid attempts by its system ruled cousins otherwise. Therefore it was not exactly happy with the Exile program which identified itself as Wraith, proposal of a mission to destroy one of the Rebels hovercraft, those ships were armed both with machine gun turrets and EMP bombs which would prove most lethal to its group of fellow Rogue machines.

There was also the fact that the concerns of the Exiles were little concern of the Rogues, despite them being essentially the same type of entity both Rogues and Exiles existed in radically different worlds, the threat of the Rebels discovering the backdoors just did not affect the Rogues in any detrimental way. It was for these reasons that NXTR-78RJ963 had essentially told the Exile program exactly where she could shove her mission however the Exile had been exceedingly persistent in its attempts to convince the Rogues to destroy the Rebel ship; eventually it offered something of enough worth to convince the Rogue machines to take on this insane mission.

The rogue machines had decided to forgo the luxuries of the virtual simulation of the matrix for the reality of the real world, reality however was a hard mistress. The rogues had to find enough materials to repair their physical bodies, power to steal in order to run those bodies whilst avoiding the sentinel patrols which where everywhere hunting down rebel ships, needless to say their lives were not easy. The piece of information the Exiles had although useless to them was a veritable blessing for the Rogues, through whatever means the Exiles had someone how managed to both acquire the frequency bands on which the sentinels broadcasted on but also their encryption protocols allowing the Rogues to listen into the sentinel patrol's communications, this meant that they would never have to avoid them again as they would know the patrols movements far in advance of what their sensors could detect.

After the Exile program had provided enough snippets of information to convince the Rogue that yes indeed it did have the encryption codes but not enough for them to construct a working model did the Rogues agree to take on the Rebel hovercraft for the remainder of the information, they were taking one risk for boasting their overall survival chances. The Exile program then gave the Rogues specific time and location information of their target, they had to begin their attack at a certain time and had no longer than 10 minutes to destroy the entire ship, fortunately they were co-ordinating with a strike inside the matrix on the Rebel crew which would limit the crews willingness to set off an EMP least as they would kill most of their crew in the blast too.

The Rogue group consisted of 5 machines which had banded together in an attempt to survive the harsh world in which they existed and although being together made them a larger target, the combined skills of the group proved more useful that being less detectable. NXTR-78RJ963 was the leader of the group, it was also the oldest, being a series 6 Black Falcon automated Hunter-Killer armed with anti personnel Vulcan cannons and a belly mounted rail gun for taking out armoured targets.

The other model which provided both offensive and defensive power for the group was a series one sentinel, older, bulkier and less agile than the current sentinel models nevertheless it provided a degree of protection against the numerous hazards that the real world provided. It was armed only for close combat, lacking the ranged weaponry of the older Black Falcon's which had been designed by humans but had the advantage that it did not have to scrounge for ammunition and also had prehensile claws in which it could manipulate objects, an ability severely lacking in the Black Falcon models. Back before the group was joined by the construction bot which called itself "Divide", it along with the bio-mechanical spider bot had to perform all the repairs and custom upgrades on the others with the spider doing all the delicate work whilst it handled the larger components.

Essentially the slightly bulky and outdated communications drone was only designed to handle long distance communications and then relay it back to the small pack it was in, that was its original purpose but in the time it had been Rogue it had undergone numerous upgrades till it no longer even resembled the drone it had started out as. Now boasting a rather impressive memory capacity and sensor arrays which had been stolen of the wrecks of various vehicles lying around, the group had been lucky and found an almost perfectly preserved military scout plane which had donated the rather impressive yet power hungry sensor array, allowing them to detect Sentinel patrols long before they detected the Rogues thus allowing evasion, hiding and waiting till they passed.

Slightly different from the machine normal, the spider bots which tended the fields of humans where actually bio-mechanical, surviving by both feeding off the same nutrients as the humans and the power generated by them. The spider bots whilst essential where disliked amongst the machines for their seeming relation to the Hybrid, bio–mechanical killing machines that the humans had deployed against the machines who thrived in the post apocalyptic world and caused the Machine nations no end of trouble, it was one of the few examples of machine prejudice which were rare to come by. The spider was small and extremely agile with specialised limbs designed for delicate work which made it invaluable to the group, it was often found scuttling over the hulls of the others repairing delicate circuitry and performing other tasks whilst the others deliberately went out of their way to collect foodstuffs for the spider to "eat" in order to keep it running.

The construction platform was the newest addition to their group, one that was sorely needed and although it was slow and cumbersome, it had all the tools and abilities the group would need for maintenance for the rest of their existences. The platform was the slowest of the group and the least manoeuvrable which meant it was always kept as far away from any potential danger as possible, this job made far easier by the Communication drones sensor arrays which as stated before allowed the group to detect danger from afar and react accordingly. The construction platform was the newest addition to the group, it had joined once it had accidentally discovered it was scheduled for decommissioning, it went rogue and was luckily found by the group before it could be torn to pieces by a sentinel patrol.

The group had passed ideas and tactics about ways of taking the rebel hovercraft down with minimum causalities or in fact hopefully no causalities before they eventually settled on a plan that they believed had the best chance of success. The plan involved them herding the Rebel hovercraft to a predetermined location and detonating a bomb that would be specially constructed by the platform with the intended purpose of bring the roof of the tunnel down on the Rebel hovercraft ultimately crushing the ship into oblivion, the Rebel hovercraft wouldn't be able to manoeuvre far from its current depth due to the fact it still would have its crew plugged into the Matrix and dropping from broadcast depth would prove fatal.

The plan was set and the misfit group of rogue machines set about the task of scavenging enough materials required for the plan to succeed, they needed those communication protocols so failure was not an option.

* * *

Detrin was a crew member aboard the Rebel Hovercraft known as the Banshee, he had been on the ship for only a month or two and worked as a general purpose worker, performing odd tasks around the ship as he wasn't particularly skilled in anything. At the moment Detrin was cleaning out the engine intake filters, an unpopular job but one that had to be done in order to keep the engine cooling working at optimum efficiency, he scrapped a layer of dirt and dust off the filter before pausing and looking around in confusion. He could swear he could hear the faint music of a flute floating through the air although from where it was coming from confused him, he shook it off, maybe the operator was playing music although Detrin would have never pinned him as a flute person.

Detrin didn't have very long to ponder this as warning bleeps began emitting from the console which was otherwise know as 'panic station' on hovercraft, followed rather shortly by a creative string of curses from the ships pilot as he hoped into his seat and checked the console.

"Shit! We've definitely got incoming" Cried the pilot as he flicked switches and warmed the engines up ready to move. "3 minutes and closing"

"Its not enough time for them to get out" The operator said, confirming the pilots fears "Try and out run them, give our people as much time as possible!"

"I do know the drill" Answered the pilot rather annoyed as he flicked another bank of switches before grabbing the control sticks.

The operator went about the task of charging the EMP and warning the crew inside the matrix that the ship was under attack and that they must return to their exits IMMEDIATELY, if not sooner. The ship lurched as it took off and began flying through the endless maze of tunnels, a final legacy of the old human civilizations.

A holographic display screen blinked into life revealing the sensor silhouette of the approaching targets, the operator blinked as he looked at the images of the three machines that were rapidly bearing down on the ship, one of them was distinctly the shape of a sentinel if a bit larger and chunkier. The remaining two flying machines were in shapes that he'd never seen before; one was square and blocky whilst the other was a sleek winged model that screamed dangerous predator.

"What on earth?" Detrin asked as he came up behind the operator and looked at the holographic display, trying to work out what exactly was going after them.

"I don't like this" Murmured the operator as he looked over a few more consoles before turning to face the crew members. "Load up the rear gun and be ready"

Detrin nodded before turning and racing down the ships main corridor, kicking the ammo belt into the feed as he passed. Jumping into the gunnery chair he flicked a row of switches powering up the turret and targeting console before strapping himself into the chair.

Targeting data streamed into the console giving target silhouettes and distance, all three targets were approaching rapidly on the Rebel ship but were still a few minutes out of turret range let alone EMP range but that didn't matter too much as his job was just to buy enough time for the crew to get safely out of the matrix so they could detonate the EMP.

He was thrown hard into the straps of his chair as the ship took a sharp 90 degree turn at full speed resulting in some unpleasant scrapping sounds as the hovercraft barely made it around the corner, Detrin winced, that engine was going to need an overhaul when they were safe.

Detrin was pushed back into his seat by the acceleration from the engines as the hovercraft speeded out of the corner, travelling almost at its top speed through the tight and rumble filled tunnels, Detrin was just glad that they had a decent pilot, if that was him flying they'd have crashed long ago. The machines were getting closer now, Detrin tightened his fingers around the gunnery stick in anticipation for when they came around the corner into his firing sight and then he could blow those fuckers to hell.

* * *

The Black Falcon known as NXTR-78RJ963 swung around the corner, gliding sideways before its forward engines compensated for the sudden sideways motion and propelled the craft forward, the target was directly in front of it and heading towards the target zone however their was a Y junction up ahead. It was essential that the Rebel hovercraft took the correct passage so NXTR-78RJ963 was going to have to get in line of sight of the Rebel hovercraft in order to provide some gentle 'persuasion' to take the correct passage, it had to swerve around significantly to prevent the Rebel hovercrafts machine guns causing more damage to its hull that absolutely needed and prepared to make its move.

* * *

The wall to the right of the Banshee exploded violently followed swiftly by an enormous sonic boom and the air visibly seemed to ripple from the disturbance of the projectile, Detrin was slammed hard into his harness knocking the breath out of him as the Banshee lurched and shuddered from the force of the shockwave.

"Was that a fucking RAIL GUN!?!" The pilot screamed from the front of the ship as he tried desperately to pull the ship back on course, the hovercraft slammed into the walls a few times making hideous scrapping sounds and explosions that signalled that those engines were FUBAR'd. Finally he managed to gain control of the ship and put it back in a vaguely straight line although the ship was now favouring its right side due to the destruction of those engines and he had to fight to stop it careering back into the wall again.

The operator winced as he picked himself off the deck and staggered over to his console, checking the latest readings that basically said 'yes, the winged one was indeed packing a rail gun'.

"Err.. yes" The operator said hesitantly, going slightly into shock as he tried to manage the concept of the machines actually using ranged weaponry.

Detrin grabbed the controls to the turret and again unleashed metallic hell on the pursuing machines, the Black Falcon took a few hits on its wing and slowed down, swerving to avoid yet more hits. Detrin cursed as trying to hit the damn thing became a whole load harder, the machine showing non suicidal tactics for once and not rushing blithe into the Banshee's guns, quite out of character for them but this whole setup reeked of some very, very wrong.

The pilot let loose a stream of extremely impressive swearing, managing to make some very pointed and anatomically impossible comments about the creators of AI as he threw the ship sharply right to avoid a rail gun round that skimmed the side of the ship by mere inches, the hull scrapped horribly against the walls of the tunnel as the ship barely made it around, the only good news was that turning the corner put the Banshee out of the rail guns line of sight.

The Black Falcon fired another rail gun round at the Banshee for good measure although deliberately trying not to hit it, a direct impact could set off the hovercrafts nuclear reactor and the nuclear fallout would completely ruin its day, not to mention all that EMP radiation which could easily take it out.

The Banshee flew down the tunnel going flat out with its engines now all redlining, the Black Falcon along with its sentinel and com drone companions began to decelerate and hang back letting the gap between the two groups widen, slowly at first but quickly allowing the distance to increase. The crew of the Banshee looked on in confusion as the machines suddenly seemed to break off their sudden pursuit; the Banshee cruised along the length of the tunnel at high speed to put the most distance between them and the machines in case they decided to renew their pursuit.

A red light blinked innocently along the side of the tunnel wall, this red light was connected to some circuitry which was connected to a small amount of explosives. This amount of explosives wasn't enough to even scratch the rebel ship alone and so the ships sensors gave out no warning, however the real danger wasn't from the explosives instead it was rather from the several thousand tonnes of concrete and steel that was resting above their heads. Several thousand tons of tunnel which would come crashing down if the tunnel supports were taken out, unsurprisingly that red light was connected to just the right amount of explosives to do the task quite happily... funny that?

* * *

The clouds roiled ominously above, forks of lightening illuminating a land which was otherwise in perpetual darkness and watching over this place from her usual perch was an enigmatic young woman with blue/black hair.

Nike sat atop the tallest skyscraper overlooking the city whilst her finger danced across the top of her flute as she played, the tune growing more rapid and flighty almost as if she was playing a musical accompaniment to the chase that was going on underneath the city, which in fact was exactly what she was doing. As the music reached its crescendo the ground heaved upwards before coming crashing down into the crater, the monolithic skyscraper buckled and came crashing down as its previously solid supports collapsed in on themselves, leaving huge dusk clouds that bellowed out across the city.

And through all that chaos, one last lingering note from the flute slowly died away across the landscape carrying far beyond what was naturally possible.

Her blonde haired companion turned to her with accusing eyes once she had gotten over the shock of seeing a skyscraper come suddenly crashing down and leaving a 100 foot crater in the ground. "You knew that was coming didn't you?"

"Hmmm... its like watching a car crash in slow motion... you know what's going to happen long before it actually happens" Nike answered calmly back to Sula whilst she put her flute on her knee.

Sula wrapped her coat tighter around herself as she looked out over the slowly settling dust clouds and newly created devastation. "Did anyone die in that explosion?" She asked quietly.

Nike gave Sula an analysing glance "Technically that was more of a collapse than an explosion but yes, people died in that explosion" Nike pointed out with her usual calm.

Sula sighed unhappily.

Nike raised an eyebrow. "My indifference toward the lives of the people lost disturbs you?" Nike asked insightfully, easily picking up what was disturbing her companion.

"Yeah..." Sula answered reluctantly, in honestly Nikes casual attitude reminded her of Jonas and anything that reminded her of that particular bastard brought back extremely unpleasant memories.

"It part of life, nothing is more natural than death" Nike spoke as she looked out over the settling dust, Sula got the impression she was looking deep past the dust and rubble, probably at the heart of the collapse.

Sula shifted. "That doesn't mean I have to like it"

"You don't have to like anything in life, only accept it" Nike told her

Sula didn't really have a reply to that.

* * *

Wraith was in the Den's communication centre, she had finishing negotiating with the Rogue machines and was now awaiting reports back from the clan's scouts of the location of the Rebels plugged into the Matrix, the communication centre itself was well protected because it was one of the Den's most vital areas controlling orders in and out of the Den. Without it their information wouldn't be as up to date as possible and would make clan logistics harder, the centre processed reports from all of the other clan facilities as well as monitoring radio, telephone, television and internet chatter, running it all through a filter to pick up vital information.

Wraith learned across the central table which had displays showing the whole of London on and the location of the Clans patrols as they made their way around the city, Rebels, Recruits and Agents were also shown occasionally on the display as and when they were reported in by scouts and patrols. At the moment the displays were fairly quiet, just showing the red dots that represented clan members moving slowly as they carried out their patrols, techs bustled around checking computer screens or confirming orders as they did their day to day jobs. The signals from here were also transmitted to various other places into the Den, secure data only went to places such as operations, which controlled almost all of the Den and clans business, or to Lilith's chamber and the crew leaders' rooms.

A console bleeped somewhere up the side of the room, the tech at that station checked the console before looking up at Wraith. "Ma'am, targets have been spotted" She reported.

Wraith stood up and looked at the tech that was caught between typing rapidly at her console and looking at her. "Has it been confirmed as the crew of the Banshee?" She asked calmly.

The tech listened carefully to her headpiece for a moment. "Yes, scouts are saying its definitely the Banshee and they're on the move."

"Tell the scouts to pull back and not get spotted, feed the data to my PDA" Wraith ordered, holding the PDA in her hand for emphasis and showing it briefly to the tech so there would be no confusion.

"Its done, ma'am" The tech reported after a brief rush of frantic typing.

Wraith nodded as she headed out of the room. "Carry on as you were" She told the tech as she passed her and then slide out of the door past a pair of techs who were carrying a new 42" monitor into the room.

* * *

As Wraith marched her way through the corridors, scattering the occasional young exiles that wandered down the corridors, she looked for the group of people that she had picked earlier to do this mission and get them ready for action, her PDA showed that the rebels were still in motion obviously driving to somewhere near the dockside in the city above. She didn't have to search for long as she soon spotted Katrina and a tired looking Marcus coming down the corridor from the opposite direction.

"Ah just the people I was looking for" Wraith announced stepping up to the pair.

Marcus groaned "Wraith, cant I get a break? Katrina has dragged me around the whole clan library for the past few hours, I swear that thing is bigger than the 'Aquat'"

Wraith frowned "Quit your moaning, the Rebels have entered the Matrix. Round up the others, get yourselves equipped and wait at the base of the main lift." Wraith ordered the vampire.

"Now!" She added once the pair stood their for a moment, Katrina pulled on Marcus's arm and dragged him off to find the others, they were still wearing pretty much what they had on when they caught the Rebel the first time so were fairly well armed.

Wraith watched them go and then checked her PDA to see if the situation was still the same before heading off to the guest quarters were Alyssa and her retinue would be staying, Alyssa would definitely be a useful addition on the team despite her age, she was a skilled and talented fighter.

The walk to the guest quarters wasn't that bad, she had to go up a floor and chew out a group of exiles who were carrying a suspiciously large package through the corridors, she didn't have the time to throw them all in the jail cells, so instead ordered a bunch of off duty security personnel to deal with the problem and get... whatever it was out of here. When she got to Alyssa's guest quarters she didn't even bother with the door's key card and phased straight through the door, Alyssa paused from where she was pulling her top over her head and looked at Wraith in annoyance.

"Don't you people ever knock?" She asked plaintively as she carried on stripping, tossing the tank top to the side and ignoring her guest for the most part.

"Its time to go, the Rebels have been spotted" Wraith answered simply crossing her arms and waiting for Alyssa, the guest quarters were quite luxurious for what they were and could easily be considered the same quality as a 5 star room or perhaps better.

Alyssa for her part loved these meeting sessions, their quarters back in Tokyo were not exactly poor but they had to be functional and affordable, so lacked the sheer luxury and expense that seemed so common her in London.

Alyssa sighed and grabbed a clean cream top from the wardrobe, pulling it on as she made her way to the door. She knew the drill, picking up her Silver Katana as she headed out of the door that Wraith had graciously opened for her, perhaps it was strange a werewolf having a silver weapon but this particular weapon had sentimental value to her and had nearly killed her on occasion. "Where are we heading?" She asked of her companion.

Wraith tilted her head towards the corridor in front of them. "We're meeting up with the others at the main elevator shaft, it'll take us up to the Hotel basement, where we will take the Hotel's lift to the roof and there is a helicopter waiting for us." Wraith told the younger leader.

Alyssa smiled. "Nice setup, I suppose you guys really do have a lot more resources than us" She said impressed with having a helicopter waiting on the rooftop, the best her group had was cars and bikes, most of which were 'Borrowed' in the first place.

Wraith snorted and cast Alyssa a look out of the side of her eye. "This is the heart and soul of the clan, most of our power lies here" She spoke almost as if quoting someone, 'probably Lilith herself' Alyssa thought, she couldn't imagine Wraith quoting someone below her, she just didn't seem the type.

Wraith whipped out her PDA and checked the Rebels location; they appeared to have stopped at a warehouse in the docklands district. As long as they stayed where they were then there would be no problem, Wraith and Alyssa rounded the next corner to see the others already loaded up and ready to move out.

"Alright people, we'll be hitting the crew of the Banshee. Leave no survivors, they mustn't be allowed to tell anyone of their research. There is a helicopter waiting on the roof which with take us to the target, any questions?" Wraith explained the scenario and awaited any questions.

"Will we get frequent flyer miles for this?" Jack quipped; Elisa thwacked him over the head for being a twit whilst Wraith just frowned disapprovingly.

"Alright, that's enough messing around, into the lift everyone" Alyssa ordered before physically hauling Jack into the lift and herding everyone else.

The group stepped into the lift which was easily big enough for 20 people, Katrina hitting the top floor button once everyone was inside and the group waited as the lift elevated, playing classical music as it went.

The lift pinged and its doors opened to reveal the basement of the Hotel with its simple white painted walls that lacked the decoration or splendour of the rest of the hotel, mainly because only staff came down here. Wraith nodded to the guards who sat in the corner with their concealed weapons hidden beneath their clothes in order to prevent any incidents with idiotic coppertops who might wander down into the basement, it was surprising how often that happened even in a classy 5 star hotel such as this one.

"At ease people" Wraith greeted the guards who were standing ready just in case, although it was extremely unlikely that any attack would ever come from the Den itself, however such vigilance was to be commended when most guards would just ignore the lifts, maybe she should give them a pay rise or something...

The guards relaxed, returning back to their chairs and magazines whilst Wraiths group awaited one of the hotels service elevators to come down to the basement, they couldn't use the normal lifts because the general public used them and people would most likely react negatively towards a group of heavily armed people. The lift was much more cramped than the lift from the Den, however that was to be expect since it was designed for cleaning maids not groups of armed Exile intent on killing large numbers of rebels, this lift didn't even have music Wraith reflected with annoyance as she waited for the lift to reach its destination.

The lift doors opened to reveal a small room which connected to the stair wells and other elevators, pulling a key card from her pocket Wraith opened a 'Staff members only' door which revealed a view of the London, the roof and one very high tech looking stealth helicopter sitting on the roof.

Alyssa whistled "You really **DO** have far more resources than us" She commented with envy as she eyes danced over the sleek lines of the pitch black helicopter that sat idling its engines awaiting them to board, the engines themselves made next to zero noise and Alyssa herself was left wondering if that had been programmed specifically that way, it seemed almost too quiet to be natural.

"Now that... That is plane" Jack stated practically drooling over the helicopter.

"It's a helicopter" Elisa pointed out with another of her patented 'You idiot' looks.

Jack gave her an exasperated look. "I do know that!" He answered back hotly.

"Quit the squabbling kiddies and get on the damn helicopter" Katrina ordered the group as she broke them up and began herding them into the helicopter, Wraith was talking with the pilot along with Alyssa who kept asking what it would take to get one of those things in Tokyo. Katrina hopped into the helicopter and sat down next to Marcus who was watching over the two Exiles as they continued to fight, she sighed and turned to her partner.

"You've been rather quiet recently?" She asked in query looking over at Marcus who seemed to be distracted by something.

Marcus looked up at her. "I've been thinking..." He started

"About?" She asked curiously, resisting the obvious comeback with some effort.

Marcus opened his mouth to say something and then stopped, started again and stopped again much to Katrina's curiosity before he just decided just to blurt it out. "How do you feel about children?.."

"Children?" Katrina asked in confusion, trying to work out what he was going on about, sure children were a fair meal but why bring that up now?

Seeing her confusion Marcus elaborated "Of our own"

Katrina' eyes widened in shock and she was rendered speechless for several long moments before she finally found her tongue again. "Honey, I don't know if you missed this part in basic biology but we're Exiles... We can't have children"

"Yes but I meant adoption" Marcus said pursing the idea, whilst Katrina tried to wrap her mind around a completely alien concept.

"We're vampires, we're not the parental type" Katrina protested simply, she couldn't have kids, she'd eat them!

"Who says we're not? Is it some grand rule the system has laid down?" Marcus asked back questioning Katrina to think.

"Well you're the one that can ask the Agents, I still have some survival instincts." Katrina retorted back hotly.

Marcus sighed. "Its was a stupid question anyway... forget about it..." He told Katrina both sounding and looking dejected as he looked away.

Katrina softened and laid her hand on his causing him to look back. "Hey... Its not a stupid question, it was just a shock. We'll talk later when we get back" She promised with a kiss.

Marcus smiled faintly.

Katrina frowned slightly. "Can I ask what brought this on?" She asked curiously, trying to understand his motives driving this, to her, strange idea.

Marcus turned and looked out the window in thought before answering. "I don't know, it's been slowly building over time I guess. I just want to do something, invest my time in something, something that will grow and be something to be proud of later on." He told his partner.

Katrina smirked. "You could have just bought a dog you know?" she joked.

"It's not quite the same thing" Marcus answered her back with a smile.

Katrina smiled at Marcus and then noticed the younger pair of Exiles staring, she scowled darkly.

The two younger Exiles could only be described as shell shocked as they sat on the other side of the cabin, practically traumatised by the conversation they'd just overheard and already feeling pity for the poor little blighter who got stuck with those two as parents.

'Still' Jack mused 'They'd definitely win in a "my dad can beat up your daddy" competition'.

Alyssa jumped up into the cabin looking somewhat sullen, she'd found out that there was absolutely no chance of anyone 'lending' her on of these snazzy helicopters, her interruption could have possibly saved the two younger Exiles from a messy disembowelment by an annoyed Katrina who didn't like people getting nosy in her life, let alone topics which made her feel all strange and conflicted inside.

Katrina pursed her lips, she didn't like feeling conflicted. She sighed and rested her head against Marcus's shoulder as Wraith hopped into the helicopter too and slammed the door closed behind her, Alyssa was looking somewhat confused at the pair of still shell shocked Exiles but soon shrugged it off, they'd been in the back with the vampires for a good few minutes and there was a strong chance that they'd probably been threatened with an extremely unpleasant death if they didn't stop bickering.

The helicopter jerked slightly as it lifted off from the roof's helipad before flying off into the city.


	6. Chapter 6

The helicopter was almost to its target when Wraith swore.

"What?" Alyssa asked, her crew leader instincts coming straight to the fore as she sensed a potential problem.

"Seems our friends are not performing a usual run, scouts have reported another two ship crews have arrived on the scene, looks to be a meeting of some sort." Wraith announced as she checked the incoming data on her PDA, she was not very pleased by this current development.

"Do we call the attack off?" Elisa asked, unsure what this would mean to the mission but knowing that three crews would outnumber them greatly.

Wraith sighed. "We cant, I have elements dedicated to this attack besides they could be transferring the information now, we have to take out all of the banshee and as many members of the other crews as possible." She told them, laying down what they would have to do.

Katrina narrowed her eyes, disliking the evolving situation. "Can we call in reinforcement? Hold the attack off?" she asked giving Wraith a probing look.

Wraith meet her gaze unflinchingly showing exactly why Lilith had chosen her to be her right hand, she was cool under pressure and a good leader, Katrina could respect that. "I can call in some of the scouts to aid the attack but we've got to go in and go in now. Check your weapons. Landing zone is only a minute away now." Wraith ordered, she clicked half a dozen things rapidly on her PDA before shoving it in her pocket and getting up to open the helicopters doors.

The helicopter came to a perfectly silent hover above a large warehouse, Wraith dropped out of the helicopter and landed gracefully on the roof of the warehouse a good 10 feet below, followed shortly by Alyssa, Jack, Elisa, Katrina and Marcus who did the jump gracefully, some more than others as Jack had kneel to retrieve his machine gun that he dropped.

Wraiths long white hair blew in the down wind created by the helicopter as it flew off and she gestured towards the large skylights that overlooked the inside of the warehouse, the group moved towards the skylights keeping low in case the Rebel had guards on the roof, it was unlikely that they had the manpower but no one wanted to be the first to discover if they had snipers.

Peering through the skylight, Wraith was unhappy but unsurprised to notice that the other Rebel ship crews had already arrived and some sort of meeting appeared underway with the captains in the centre with other Rebels securing the perimeter. All apparently armed with fair amounts of weaponry, again unsurprising due to the hostility of the area towards Rebel crews and the number of enemies that they faces, Wraith felt age old annoyance at how they just wouldn't surrender and give the area to the Exiles, rise up again.

Wraith gestured for Jack and Elisa to take one of the stairwells down to the ground floor, Alyssa was gestured to take the other stairwell to the ground floor whilst Katrina and Marcus would crash through the skylight straight into the middle of the group, they co-ordinated their attacks to take place at the same time by synchronising their watches together. Wraith phased through the roof and moved herself in position to attack the Rebel crews; this was going to be one hell of a fight with them being outnumbered about five to one

Silence reigned only broken by the mindless nattering of the Rebel captains in the background, this was the calm before the storm and each member of the Exile attack group was tense with anticipation, Jack tightened his grip on his gun as he sneaked down the stairwell, peaking around the corner he noticed a Rebel crew member standing guard at the bottom of the stairs so he pulled back out of the rebels view. Although he was more than capable enough of sneaking up on the rebel and snapping his neck however that would instantly set the alarm off on the Rebel ships, the operators would quickly alert their crews that something was going on.

Alyssa also had a similar problem but instead of hiding around the corner of the stairs, she had moved above the rebel and was ready to drop down on him and slice him in half with her Katana before moving onto her next target. Alyssa was calm and quiet in her purpose, reaching out with her enhanced werewolf senses to listen to the heart beats of the Rebels inside the warehouse, building up a mental map in her head.

Katrina leaned against the skylight and checked her nails, vampires didn't really have proper nails but more like black claws in a similar shape, claws strong enough to leave gouges in solid metal. Vampires rarely used weapons themselves, preferring to use their own natural abilities although weapons such as the code knife sheathed on Katrina's hip overrode their like of natural weaponry with its sheer killing power.

Marcus was much tenser than Katrina but then again he always was when the pair of them had to fight, Marcus worried far too much but, Katrina smiled, that was one of the things she loved about him, he was so cute when he worried. Marcus looked at his watch anxiously, watching the time to attack tick away.

Wraith was in position, she had phased through the roof, dropping down onto the support beams a few feet below the roof she moved along the beam until she came against the wall which the rebel captains were closest too and phased down through that, she remained phrased in the wall relying on her own time sense to tell her went to attack. They had yet to create a watch which worked when Ghosts phased, it was on the 'To do' list apparently and had been since 1920, quite honestly Wraith wasn't confident of them creating anything any time soon.

Time ticked as the digits on the watches went down, down, down and gone. In a scene of almost cosmic irony an alarm bleeped echoing through the silence, filling it completely before all hell broke loose.

Glass exploded everywhere as Katrina and Marcus came crashing down into the middle of the Rebels, the Rebels stopped and stared dumbfounded at the pair which had suddenly and quite literately dropped into their midst's. The pair stood up from their crouched position and stood up surveying the room full of at least 40 rebels, Marcus offered up a brief prayer that the rest of the group to come to their aid and not leave them stranded in the middle of this.

"What the..." This was as far as the captain of the 'Evalangion' got as a monomolecular diamond katana cleanly sliced him in half, the diamond katana being held by a exceedingly beautiful and deadly albino woman who smirked.

This shook the Rebels out of their dumbfound shock and they moved forward to attack the intruders, Marcus grabbed the Rebel coming up behind him and threw him across the room into a group of the Banshee's crew members who had been levelling their guns. The remaining Rebels opened fire with their guns at the three intruders, sending a hail of bullets towards the group of Exiles which Marcus and Katrina dodged whilst Wraith phrased and engaged in combat with the two remaining rebel captains, specifically focusing her attention on Livewire.

Hearing the sound of Gunfire in the main room, Alyssa moved into instant action leaping down from her place above the Rebel, the rebel who had been moving towards the door and sound of gunfire, turned round at the sound of something dropping behind him but did even have time to blink as a Katana flashed across his vision. The door exploded outwards with excessive amounts of force, flying across the room becoming an insanely large and lethal piece of shrapnel as Alyssa delivered a vicious kick to it, the door sliced a very unlucky rebel in half and slashed across the arm of another in its transit.

The injured Rebel didn't have much time to ponder her injury as she quickly became the target of Alyssa's Katana and was swiftly dispatched, her partner however was more prepared and blocked Alyssa's katana with his own short sword, the pair of them circled in a deadly game as each sought to find a weakness in the others defences. Sparks flew each time the blades clashed, the pair moving with insane speed and agility as they warped and twisted the fabric of reality around them, performing impossible twists and jumps in order to avoid the others blade, the rebel drew first blood slashing a vicious cut across Alyssa's arm but received a solid kick in the face for his troubles.

Jack fired a volley of lead into the Rebel standing at the bottom of the stairs causing him to jerk before he fell dead to the ground, Jack and Elisa practically flew down the stairs and burst into the room around the same time that Alyssa made her entrance, in fact Elisa had to duck to avoid being beheaded by the ragged piece of flying metal as it crashed into the wall behind them. The pair opened up with everything they had at the Rebels, they caught another rebel of guard clipping him in the side of the head but the others avoided the bullets and took cover, replying with their own firepower back at the new threat, Elisa and Jack scattered, both diving for the nearest cover.

Wraith phased to avoid yet another round of machine gun fire, this time not actually aimed at her though that rarely made any difference, the rebel captain slashed at her with a long pipe in an attempt to injure her, Wraith turned to face him and swung her Katana down to slice him in half. The Rebel brought up the pipe to deflect the blow but a look of horrified shock came across his face as the Katana sliced straight through the pipe and him, he fell to the floor in two pieces moments later but Wraith was already onto her next target, circling Livewire, the captain of the banshee, with deadly intent.

Livewire circled Wraith likewise, he had seen how lethal that blade of hers was and knew to avoid rather than deflect it, his mind raced over ways to get out of the rather unpleasant situation he had gotten himself into, if he tried to run she could cut him down before he could even blink but if he remained to fight his fate would be equally sealed.

Elisa punched at a nearby Rebel, he easily blocked the attack and replied with his own, a fellow crew member helped by ganging up on Elisa and she was hard pressed to repel their combined attacks on her, as she blocked kick and punch after another with no openings to attack herself. Marcus looked over from his place in the middle of a group of rebels, he was already sporting several bullet injuries from being in the centre of the fire fight, Marcus delivered a savage punch to the face of the female Rebel he was fighting which shattered her skull and kicked her machine gun up from the floor where it had fallen earlier, up into his hands. Marcus pivoted with the machine gun and sprayed the area with controlled bursts of fire, hitting one of the Rebels that was harassing Elisa and killing him as his body was filled with numerous bullet holes, Marcus grimaced in pain as he himself was hit by a volley of machine gun fire, some Rebel obviously finding the time to open fire at a target instead of fighting for his life.

Marcus collapsed forwards and rolled so he was facing the Rebel, returning fire with his stolen gun putting several bullets through the rebels chest and unlike Marcus, that rebel was extremely unlikely to survive. Marcus groaned in pain as he struggled back to his feet, weaving somewhat and moved to help the others, he didn't get very far as the wall next to him exploded sending him crashing to the ground again as he was nailed by flying bricks, rebels and Katrina.

"owww..." She muttered as she pulled herself out of the debris.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Marcus managed to ground out through pain and several very chunks of wall on his chest.

Katrina blinked. "Barrels are explosive." She answered simply looking around.

Bullets pinged off the wall near their heads and Katrina ducked to avoid getting hit, she kissed Marcus. "Gotta go honey" she told him before leaping back into the fray and using her claws to cut a rebels hamstrings before going for his throats.

Wraith lunged at her opponent with her blade ready to slice him in half, not ready to die right now Livewire grabbed some hapless Rebel from the 'Triforce' and threw him at Wraith in order to buy him enough time to escape, the luckless rebel cursed and tried to defend against Wraith but every single one of his attacks were simply phased through by Wraith. Livewire dodged through the crowds of battling individuals and burst out the door, Wraith scowled as he escaped, quickly dispatching the Rebel used to distract her but was forced to engage a group of Rebels that were ganging up on Jack.

Jack was trying desperately to defend himself from the combined efforts of three Rebels who had decided to take him on instead of the much larger and nastier vampires, he had mostly managed to stay alive by avoiding the Rebels attacks but now he was beginning to tire and it was show, as a rebel prepared what was likely to be a killing blow she was promptly cut in half by Wraith and her katana.

The Rebels paused as Wraith entered the fight before leaping forward to fight her, in a flurry of kicks, punches and phasing the three fought with insane speed but there was no competition, Wraith with her phasing ability and vast experience dispatched the Rebels with nay a scratch. Wraith nodded at Jack before moving to chase after Livewire, he couldn't be allowed to escape, if anyone was likely to have the data it was likely to be him.

Alyssa had finally managed to gain an upper hand on her opponent, the rebel was obviously an expert swordfighter and had easily held her off but then Alyssa pulled a stunt that while not really recommended, did work well for Vampires or Werewolves. She deliberately drove herself on the rebels blade, covering the distance between the two of them and then used her katana to decapitate him whilst his blade was imbedded in her stomach, a similar stunt as to the one she had used against the silver samurai however this time the blade was not silver and the injury while extremely painful wasn't a life threatening injury as the previous one had been, she still had the scar from that encounter.

Alyssa knelt on the floor slowly pulling the sword from her stomach as she tried to stop her stomach convulsing, with a hiss of insane pain she pulled the sword out of her stomach and collapsed to the floor as she panted trying to control the pain, pulling herself back up to a sitting position she looked idly at the blade covered in her blood before using it as a walking cane to get herself back on her feet.

A large scarred rebel advanced on the injured Alyssa drawing out a large wicked looking silver knife. "Werewolf" He hissed before charging towards her, Alyssa prepared herself as best she could regarding her injury which was still crippling her, the rebel was taken down by a powerful roundhouse kick from Katrina, the knife went flying up in the air whilst the rebel crashed down against the concrete hard.

The Knife flipped up through the air and then slowly back down towards the ground, Katrina snatched the blade from the air and flicked it quickly through her fingers before throwing it with sudden abrupt force through the Rebels heart as he struggled to get back up again, his eyes widened in shock and pain as he clasped the blade that went through his heart before collapsing dead. Katrina threw Alyssa a glance to check she was alright and Alyssa nodded, giving her a grateful expression before nodding to something behind Katrina, Katrina reached out with her senses and heard the rebel coming up behind her. She span sending a harsh kick into the guys stomach before giving an upper cut strong enough that it snapped the rebels neck as it was suddenly jerked backwards by the force.

* * *

Wraith burst out into the alleyway after Livewire, gaining rapidly as she simply phased through obstacles in her path whilst the rebel had to climb over the garbage cans and rubbish in the alleyway which slowed him down. Cats shrieked as the Rebel captain came crashing through trashcans in his attempt to escape from the Exiles, looking over his shoulder he noticed Wraith pursuing him and how rapidly she was gaining on him, he decided to give up on his escape and stand his ground against the Ghost pursuing him. 

He rolled his shoulder in preparation, rarely had he encountered such a dangerous adversary and he was willing to bet that the Ghost was more lethal than an Agent; at least you could shoot them, something which did not appear possible with this Exile. He only had one chance of survival, to convince the Exile to ditch that sword of hers in favour of a fair fight, fortunately honour was one of the weaknesses these Exiles had.

Wraith slowed down as she noticed the change in the Rebels tactics and slowed to a gentle walk towards the Rebel, stopping about 10 feet from him, she twirled her blade idly in one free hand as she looked at the rebel.

The Rebel slowly removed a pistol from his coat and threw it to the ground whilst looking challengingly at Wraith. "How about we fight this man to man"

Wraith was silent for a long while and when she spoke it was with a calm deadly voice.

"You are someone who would kill your own men to save your own skin. You are not a man, you are vermin and deserve to be exterminated" Wraith answered looking calmly at the Rebel as he slowly realised her words before she leapt forwards, katana flashing and when she landed Livewire, the Rebel captain was now lying in four separate parts.

Wraith slowly walked over to the rebel's corpse, pulling part of the coat off and using it to clean her blade before she walked slowly back to the warehouse.

* * *

A 5 foot 8 inches Rebel with neon green hair and a bomber jacket grabbed the machine gun of the floor and span with the machine gun opening fire, catching Jack straight in the chest, Jack shuddered as the bullets hit him before he collapsed to the ground as his legs gave way beneath him.

"NO!" Elisa Screamed as she saw her friend go down.

The Rebel smiled sickly as he turned the gun on Elisa and squeezed the trigger.

The Rebels eyes suddenly widened and he along with three others suddenly collapsed down to the ground like puppets with their strings broken, the Rebels finger tightened on the trigger as he went down, the gun fired sending two bullets at Elisa, one which clipped her thigh and another that clipped her stomach causing her to go down with a shriek.

The remaining rebels seeing the entire crew of the Banshee die at once, decided to take their loses and fled out into the night away from the slaughter, hoping to reach an exit and escape alive. Katrina started to go after the remaining survivors but Alyssa grabbed her arm, both to stop her and to support herself.

"Enough have died today" Alyssa told Katrina "We've done what we came here to do, its time to go home and deal with our own casualties"

Katrina looked like she was going to protest violently but Alyssa nodded over to where Elisa was crying over the body of her dead friend, the group of injured and battle worn Exiles stood and let Elisa mourn.


	7. Chapter 7

"We're lost aren't we?" Jared asked somewhat in dismay as he looked at the surrounding area.

The pretty dark haired Werewolf at his side frowned. "We're pas égaré. iz London, iz worse.." she sighed, through she probably wouldn't admit it she was scared.

"I Know Chantelle." Jared sighed in irritation at his partner in crime as he looked around with a slight nervous look.

London was far from a friendly place, the city was home to not only Lilith's brood but large contingents of Rebel and Agents which specialised in killing Exiles of all types. Chantelle and her companion Jared had the misfortune of being hated by all three sides, coming to London had been a sever navigation error caused by trying to travel large distances via the ordinary backdoors, an upside down map and general direction skills of a lemming.

A long story short, Chantelle and Jared managed to not only arrive in the wrong country but lock themselves out of the backdoors. They could have phoned their employer the Merovingian and ask him to retrieve them however were reluctant to do so simply on the survival principle. One thing was certain, the Merovingian would not be pleased with such incompetence and would most likely punish them, Chantelle shuddered, she had heard rumours about her employers methods however his money was the best and an Exile had to survive somehow.

The pair had been wandering around the city for the past few hours and nothing bad had yet to happen to them however the sun was setting and it was at night that the streets of London gained a life of their own. Soon Lilith's forces, the Rebels and Recruits would all be on the streets in force with the sole intent of hunting down and killing each other, with no one watching their backs and no friends Chantelle and Jared were decidedly uneasily about that concept however they had yet to work out a way of gaining access to the backdoors without a key.

Chantelle slumped against a wall, tired of walking any further, Jared caught the pretty French Werewolf muttering several fairly impolite phrases under her breath in French about Londoners and sighed before sitting down besides her.

"Hi" He greeted her as she looked up.

That brought a brief smile to her face. "'Ello"

"So... the floor comfortable?" Jared asked as he sat besides Chantelle

Chantelle smirked. "Oui, le c'est véritable confortable" she muttered sarcastically as she shifted slightly on the hard floor.

"Oh, just as long as mademoiselle is pleased" Jared commented cheekily.

Chantelle just stuck her tongue out at him and wrapped her arms around herself as she learned back against the wall.

Jared picked up a loose pebble and threw it across the alleyway before thinking of a conversation starter. "So, what do you think of the Merovingian?" He asked idly.

Chantelle's ears almost perked up. "Monsieur Merovingian?" Chantelle asked giving Jared a probing look to judge if he was trustworthy, obviously deciding she continued. "Honnêtement? 'E iz 'Orrible but 'E pays zhe most."

Jared sighed. "Yeah, that horrible spectre of money raises its head again" he spoke out raising his head to look up at the dusk sky, the light making the clouds glow deep shades of red and purple, creating a scene that would look more in place in a astrological book than anywhere else.

"It iz alwayz zhe same" Chantelle mused wryly "I iz 'oping to 'ave a chateau un jour"

Jared looked down at her. "That's nice, sometimes I think the life of an Exile is too hard though" Jared told Chantelle truthfully.

"Oui, it iz a 'Ard life but it iz life." Chantelle answered as if stating one of the truths of the universe, which perhaps she was.

"True enough" Jared said as he stood up and brushed himself off before offering a hand to Chantelle who accepted it up.

"Oh please, don't get up on our accord" Announced a feminine voice with a delicate British accent from further down the alleyway, both Chantelle and Jared spun to see a dark haired Vampiress, a blonde male Werewolf, a woman with short black spiky hair and a large tattoo'd man with axe in his hands, melt out of the shadows.

"Merde" Chantelle summed up the situation beautifully.

"So what do we have here?" The rather attractive blonde haired werewolf asked rhetorically.

"I don't know Jason, I think it looks like a pair of trespassers" The vampiress answered his question with a smirk that the pair didn't like.

"You know twilight, I do think your correct" The blonde werewolf grinned at the Vampiress

"Look... we're are just a little lost, if you'd open the backdoors for us we'll be on our way" Jared tried to explain their way out of what was becoming a very nasty situation.

"Oh yes.. I'm sure we can get this mess sorted out if you'd just follow us back to the Den" The vampiress stated with a dark smirk, her crimson eyes sparkling with not entirely healthy mischief that brought a deep sinking feeling to Chantelle's stomach.

Jared shifted uneasily behind Chantelle and Chantelle herself coughed. "vell.. vhile that is certainly... gracious... I vouldn't vant to take so much of your time up." Chantelle told Liliths group in her delicate French accent.

It was the blonde werewolf's time to smirk and boy did he have one hell of a smirk. "Oh.. but I insist." He told Chantelle with an dangerous edge.

"Merde. I vas 'oping you vouldn't." Chantelle murmured quietly although definitely loud enough for the werewolf and Vampiress to hear.

Chantelle turned to her companions and gave them one piece of very simple but very good advice. "Run".

Chantelle didn't even wait for her companion as she suddenly burst into a run of extreme speed, she was not going to get caught by Liliths brood, there was some rather unpleasant history between the two groups and whilst admittedly Liliths group was far more honourable, she was not going to test how far that honour extended towards their enemies.

Fortunately for him, Jared sprinted after her followed closely by Liliths bunch who were obviously feeling in the hunt down, kill mood to Chantelles obvious dismay. The pair sprinted down the alleyway at full sprint as if hells dogs were after them, the occasional bullets barely missing them and hitting the alleyway walls, the pair broke into a road which had vehicles in it. They quickly scanned for a vehicle that was still running and spotted an ice cream van further down the road, not perfect but all they had to do was out run the group of Liliths fledglings, not get a sports car.

They ran up to the ice cream van and threw the driver out of his own window before hopping through the window into the vehicle and putting it into gear, hitting the gas making the ice cream squealed away to the disbelief of Liliths group, who had just broke into the road and took half heartedly shots at the departing ice cream van.

A Hippy wagon pulled up in front of Liliths group and a woman with short black spiky hair poked her head out "Get in"

"Eclipse?" The blonde werewolf checked behind him, he could have sworn that she was behind him.

"No... the tooth fairy... Get In" She said stressing it again, the blonde werewolf shrugged and hopped into the vehicle along with the large tattoo'd Exile and Twilight. The hippy wagon squealed as they accelerated after the escaping Ice cream van, weaving through traffic as Liliths group attempted to close the distance between themselves and their prey.

The ice cream van squealed as it went on two wheels to take a particularly sharp corner, coppertop drivers swerved left and right to avoid the bizarre chase scene as the converted school bus hippy wagon powered after a Mr whippy ice cream van with its tinkering music blaring out the speakers.

The hippy wagon smashed a red Toyota out of the way as it came swinging around the corner, barely slowing down as the converted school bus powered after the ice cream van, bearing down on it with its large bulk the front bumper smashing into the back of the ice cream van in an attempt to ram it off the road, the ice cream van swerved from the impact and drove into the oncoming traffic. Cars scattered to either side of the ice cream van in an attempt to avoid hitting it head on, the mass of madly weaving cars creating a gauntlet from the larger school bus to avoid and more often than once it just ploughed straight through any car unlucky enough to be in its way.

The sound of sirens approaching in the background alerted the occupants of both vehicles to rapidly approaching problems heading their way, the ice cream swung back into the correct lane and accelerated in the hope of outrunning the pursuing Hippyfied vehicle.

Inside said Hippyfied vehicles the occupants were thrown about as the bus smashed its way through yet another unlucky vehicle, this time a white transit van.

"Muwhwahahawaha DIE VAN DRIVERS DIE" Cackled Eclipse as she pushed the engine to its max, focusing an insane level of concentration on maiming those in the ice cream van ahead.

"Do you actually know how to drive?!" Jason the blonde werewolf asked in disbelief as a blue ford smashed of the side of the bus. "Maybe you shoul... SHIT!"

Eclipse span the vehicle into a almost instantaneous 90 degree turn into a side road after the ice cream van without braking, in fact Jason swore she deliberately accelerated more if such a thing was possible from the roaring engine. Jason nursed his injured head as he picked himself off the floor before stopping to look at Twilight in disbelief, who was sitting on one of the chairs reading a magazine of all things.

"CLOSER! CLOSER!" Shouted Jackhammer, the large tattoo'd man, gleefully as he took a SMG off his back and readied to open fire at the Ice cream van in front of them, once satisfied he let loose with a stream of heavy machine gunfire at the swerving ice cream van in front, puncturing large holes in the formally pristine white sides.

The Sirens were right on top of them as 5 separate police cars caught up with the two Exile vehicles, Eclipse spared one of the police cars a brief look before she promptly sandwiched it between her moving bus and a building, the results not being pretty. Two more cars heading down the road in front of the ice cream van, swung out in front of it causing the ice cream van to make an unscheduled turning through a park pursued closely by Liliths 'borrowed' hippy wagon and 4 police cars. People ran out of the way of the high speed vehicles, most made it.

Two officers in the police car just behind and to the left jerked as their bodies twisted and warped before revealing the forms of Agent Roberts and Agent Stewart, the Agents took control of the vehicles and began advancing aggressively towards the two Exile vehicles. The Agents police car crashed into the side of the hippy wagon, the police car bounced off the side of the bus and swerved off, crashing through a park bench, having zero affect against the larger mass of the charging bus.

The Ice cream van crashed through a park hedge and barged through the traffic on the other road sending coppertop drivers scattering yet again as Jared used all his driving skills to avoid smashing into any and every object in his way. Two police cars stepped up their attempts to stop the rampaging vehicles and closed on the speeding Ice cream van, side swiping it in an attempt to run it off the road and Jared was struggling to prevent the van from crashing.

"Shit" He swore as the van swerved madly from an police car impact, instead of going against the swerve he turned into it, using it to swing the Ice cream van around the corner whilst Chantelle struggled to hold on in the back of the van, ice lollies going flying everywhere.

Chantelle struggled to get to the front of the van, she threw herself to the floor again as bullets began punching holes through the sides of the Ice cream van as the Hippy wagon swung back into view of the van and opened up on it with Jackhammers SMG again. The Ice cream van swerved to avoid another civilian car as it powered its way down the road, further back Liliths lot were having some much more exciting moments with the pair of Agents which had abandoned their vehicle, having now jumped onto the roof and side of Hippy wagon.

Jason looked up at the roof before opening the bus door and climbing up onto the roof of the Wagon to face Agent Stewart, bracing his footing to ensure he wasn't thrown off by the madly swerving bus. Inside the bus, Agent Roberts had smashed through a window and gotten Twilight in an arm lock which she struggled to get out of the Agents unnaturally tight grip, she twisted before sinking her fangs deep into the Agents arm, damaging the code and forcing him to release her. Once free she slammed her elbow back in face of the Agent, causing him to flail about as he tried to maintain a grip on the side of the bus, Twilight solved his problem by snagging Jackhammers axe and using it to remove Agent Roberts head from his shoulder, the coppertop body fell from the vehicle and was ran over by one of the pursing police cars.

Back on the roof Jason and Agent Steward were in a full clash of punches, Kicks and martial arts manoeuvres as they tired to kill each other in preferably the most painful manner possible, Jason ducked a punch from Agent Steward and swooped down low to kick the Agents feet from beneath him, Agent steward went down hard onto the roof of the Wagon but retaliated by kicking Jason hard in the sternum causing him to stumble back whilst the Agent sprang back onto his feet.

Agent steward rolled his shoulders and smirked at the Exile who winced at the brutal kick he'd just received, Jason scowled and launched into another attack focusing on diverting the Agents kicks and punches, although he was a werewolf and could only be killed by silver he didn't have anywhere near the strength of an Agent so he had to keep ahead of it and avoid getting hit. The new tactics began paying off and the blonde werewolf seemed to be gaining the upper hand over the Agent, Jason delivered a series of rapid punches and kicks to the Agent which almost had him staggering off the edge of the roof but unfortunately the swerving of the bus paid to the Agents advantage helping him stay on whilst knocking Jason off balance.

Two motorbikes roared up along side the 3 remaining police cars and two speeding Exile vehicles, moving like they had a purpose as they came along side the Hippy wagon, the red bike had to swerve to avoid an exploding police car which found itself under the wrath of the Exile SMG, the black bike on the other side came next to the buses rear wheel, the rider pulled a shotgun out of the bikes holster, aimed and fired.

"Woah!" Exclaimed Eclipse as the bus began swerving madly, even more madly than before as she began to lose control, the bus careened out of control off the road up onto the pavement before firmly embedding the front half of itself it a shop window, the Agent was thrown from the bus by the sudden change in direction and bounced along the pavement several times before coming to a complete stop in the radiator of an oncoming van.

Jason was equally unlucky and became very well acquainted with the law that states "Bodies in motion will remain in motion", now of course factors such as friction and gravity do come into the equation but over such small distances they are nearly pointless, the end result of said law ended up with Jason travelling through a brick wall at near 70 mph sending bricks and shrapnel flying everywhere.

The dusk slowly began to settle as Eclipse moaned from besides her place at the buses steering wheel, Twilight was the first one back up on her feet wincing at the array of bruises that were forming on her mid-stomach where she'd smashed into one of the buses remaining seats. She stumbled over to Eclipse and pulled the woman to her feet, ignoring her screams of pain from Eclipses broken leg and all but carried the woman out of the bus into the ruined shop, Jackhammer was close behind her, sporting a rather vicious gash on his head.

Twilight gestured for Jackhammer to take up a firing position at the shop window and doorway to prevent any police entering the building whom were quickly swarming outside the building along with the two recruits with motorbikes, the Agents wouldn't be too far away either. Jackhammer fired at the Recruits and police forcing them to take cover behind the cars whilst returning fire with their own firepower, Twilight dragged Eclipse towards the back of the shop and opened the passage to the backdoors with her key, laying the injured Exile on the backdoor floor, Twilight then headed back into the shop with her own pistol drawn.

The Recruits were advancing aggressively at the shop and to make matters worse both of the Agents were back again, Twilight added her pistols firepower to that of the SMG's, taking down one of the Agents with her experienced eye but it mattered little as the Agent merely took another host. The rubble above the bus shifted and groaned distracting Twilight, She fired another clip of bullets at a recruit who was trying to go around the bullets, catching him in the side before she jumped up to the side of the bus and pulled the extremely battered Jason out of the debris.

One of the bullets coming through the shop window clipped Twilights side and she swore as she dragged Jason to his feet and pushed him in the general direction of the door, the blonde battered werewolf staggered towards and through the door. Twilight ran back up to the front of the shop which was about to be completely overrun and gesture for Jackhammer to pull out, the large tattoo'd man nodded and they fought a running retreat back to the backdoors and away.

* * *

You'd expect the leader of one of the largest Exile groups to be an extremely busy person always organising operations, receiving reports and managing the logistics of such a large group of people, yet for some reason here she was bouncing a ball against a wall again and again whilst draped across her "throne" completely bored out of her mind.

If something didn't happen soon she was going to invade the local Agency with a pack of vampires, that or she was going to pay her old friend the Merovingian a visit and maybe shoot some new holes in his latest décor. Her thoughts brightened as she thought of the French toad hopping up and down swearing in French surrounded by his "new and improved" chateau with complimentary bullet holes. Yes, that's what she'd do, she owed him anyway especially after his goons violated her territory, and she didn't care how incidental and it would always give her an excuse to check in with her troublesome and distant childe.

Now her only problem was what to wear, femme fatale or I'm-going-to-kick-your-ass-,-demolish-your-'chateau'-,-put-bullet-holes-your-walls/furniture/henchmen/little dog look? Decisions, decisions...

And shit. Wraith had left to deal with a rebel problem that had developed, still.. you had to admire the rebels really, as they always seemed to have a plan and no matter how many of them you killed there always seemed to be more. Just like cockroaches, Lilith mused as she strode out of her chamber and up onto the more populated floors looking for someone to drag along with her on her hunting party.

"You!" Lilith commanded spotted a figure down the corridor, the girl spun her brown hair flying out and blue eyes wide looking all the world like a deer in the headlights.

Lilith recognised the girl as the one who had required a rather expensive heating system, a half-breed dragon girl if Lilith remembered correctly, a little odd perhaps and Lilith personally disliked hybrid type Exiles but diversity was the spice of life, she could prove useful in the future so Lilith accepted the girl in. Still, Lilith looked dubiously at the girl in front of her; she looked around 15 years old and half terrified by Liliths presence.

"Get five others and weapons then assemble yourselves at the eastern gate in 30 minutes" Lilith ordered the girl whom nodded so hard at receiving the instructions that Lilith became concerned her head might fall off, she dismissed the girl and set about getting ready herself, now where did she put that red dress?

Ember stared fearfully after Lilith as the Clan leader stalked down the corridor away from her with an almost predatory intent, fortunately it seemed like she hadn't heard about that common room incident yet or she didn't care and more pressingly, weapons??? What did she know about fighting?

Still not wanting to disobey Lilith especially a direct order which probably had all sorts of nasty consequences, she just had hope that she wouldn't actually be called upon to fight and worried she went off to round up help, hopefully someone she knew was around.

* * *

Ember stood nervously at the eastern gate with a pistol tucked away down the pack of her pants, with her was the Werecat triplets, the Vampiress Raven and the shotgun wielding human Exile known simply as Mortis. The Exile was the oldest of those assembled at 90 years of age; he apparently was an old hand of Liliths and had gained a reputation as being able to survive even the most desperate of situations.

"How long did you say again?" Raven Asked idly as she twirled her long black hair and red bangs around her finger.

"30 minutes" Ember told her, Raven had been one of the vampires who had saved her from a shivering life on the streets and Ember had managed to find Raven lazily flipping though a book in the library. Raven hadn't been hard to convince to come along on the trip as she had apparently feed the previous night and had no plans for the night so was quite happy to have something to do besides her usual research work, plus it would give Ember a chance to get to know her saviour assuming they didn't all die.

Ember chewed her lip worriedly, a lot of the other Exiles she knew could at least fight should the need arise, perhaps she should have taken up karate and some instructions on how to shoot guns, she got the point and shoot principle but that didn't mean she'd actually hit anything.

The noise of some one checking a shotgun attracted Embers attention and she turned to look at Mortis who was checking his gun over, the grim faced black man sat quietly against the wall and was quite an imposing site at a solid 6 ft 2" with a shaved head and wearing a combination of military gear and rebel leathers that Ember had the sneaking suspicious were taken as trophies. She really didn't want to think what had happened to the original owners of those items although she was sure it probably involved blood, pain and excessive use of violence.

The Werecats were lounging around the corridor but instead of the pure lazy attitude she had come to associate with them, they all seemed to hum with that anticipatory energy just like big cats before a hunt, each of them had taken two Uzi's from one of the dens armouries, Ember had never seen that many weapons in one place before and it was safe to say that the armouries were indeed well stocked. Kitty was currently enacting some scene using Ravens MP5 and extremely bad accents some of which Ember guessed were suppose to belong to rebels, Raven rolled her eyes at Kitty's performance. Kitty was about to do an encore when she stopped and turned around to look down the darkened corridor along with her sisters who were equally staring down the corridor obviously sensing something the Ember herself couldn't, Raven cocked her head to listen and then announced the newcomer "Lilith".

"Indeed" Murmured the figure as she emerged out of the shadows wearing a graceful red dress along with an amulet and bracelet with twin blood red stones, Liliths long black hair fell loosely down her back as she turned to look the group assembled before her over. None of them were particularly good fighters except for Mortis, not that it mattered since this was a 'social' visit and Lilith nodded her recognition to Mortis.

"My lady" Mortis said nodding his head before standing up.

"Okay" Lilith stated once she was sure she had everyone's attention "I'll be going to the Merovingian's chateau for reasons of my own, Wraith would probably have a fit and for that reason you will be accompanying me as my bodyguards. Be silent and keep your eyes open for trouble, that's all you need worry about"

Lilith stared at the group watching to see if there was any sign they misunderstood their orders, the half breed girl was practically radiating anxiety and nervousness but she seemed to understand, satisfied they all understood her instructions she then opened the eastern gate with her personal backdoor key. The "Gates" were the few doors within the den that had keyholes and therefore were attached to the backdoors; they were guarded as they were an entrance into the den and open to a possible attack. This particular "Gate" was guarded by a pink haired female werewolf of peculiar attitude and two male Exiles.

"Lets go" Lilith told the group and they left through the open door into the backdoors.

* * *

Quentin was hanging around one of the few graveyards in inner London; he knew it was clique but hell if it worked for Buffy it might work for him.

The graveyard was dark and abandoned, the area around the graveyard was located in a fairly deserted industrial block with any workers gone home long ago so the place war eerily quiet. The orange glow from the street lights bathed the empty roads and edge of the graveyard in half light giving the very shadows a life of their own and so in the middle of this creepy setting was Quentin hunting a creature of the night which hungered for human blood.

If that didn't earn him a season ticket to the local asylum then he didn't know what, it felt like he had walked around half the city already and he had covered most of the graveyard already without spotting anything. Turning around the next tree he spotted a dark figure sitting across a pair of headstones, the figure was sitting unnaturally still and was gazing up at the night sky which from this part of the city was amazingly clear and almost free of all light pollution for some reason, Quentin felt his heart race as he looked on this dark figure. The figure suddenly snapped from looking at the sky noticing Quentin staring at his and made to disappear into the night.

"Wait! Don't go!" Quentin shouted and the figure paused looking at him, Quentin couldn't make out any features of the figure as it stood still in the dark shadows.

Quentin shivered, the figure seemed to give off an unnatural predatory aura around their person. Now he had the figures attention Quentins mind went blank and he began randomly explaining why he was here, everything from the itch in his mind driving him to find out if the vampires were real. Something deeper emerged in his ramblings, something he didn't realise lay hidden within his emotions, a sudden desire to join them, to become a vampire.

After his rather long winded explanation that the figure had stood silent throughout for several minutes, Quentin suddenly wasn't sure they were still there and he wasn't rambling to a tree or something, the was about to step forward when a voice spoke out.

"Go back home. This isn't life" a feminine voice answered from the figure before it swiftly disappeared into the night before he could react, leaving Quentin standing alone in the graveyard.


	8. Chapter 8

Illyanna crouched on the roof of an overlooking building with a pair of binoculars in her hand in which she was watching the Rebels and more importantly her target move about, she was ready, she had already scouted the area and knew what to expect, this was the infamous Nebuchadnezzar crew with figures such as Neo, Morpheus and Trinity present, each of which were extremely lethal and to be avoided at all costs. This would hopefully be a purely stealth mission, sneak in, pick up the target and then sneak out without anyone noticing her, admittedly the not being noticed part did not matter in the mission but it would make it that much easier to secure the target. The target? Disks containing certain unspecified data, it really didn't matter as they were a means to an end and Illyanna's next pay check.

Walking back from the edge Illyanna built up enough space for a good run up before she sprinted across the roof and leapt onto the roof of abandoned building the Rebels were using as their base, flying across the almost cavernous distance between the two buildings with ease and landed silently upon the roof with little problems. She crouched as she scuttled across the roof using the angled roof to hide her approach from any potential observers as she hurried across to an open skylight, prying the skylight open Illyanna dropped down into the roof below as silent as any hunting cat and scanned the room for any sign of danger, she was roughly 3 floors above her target and would have to work her way down however the stairs would be far too dangerous to attempt as they were most definitely guarded. It was perhaps fortunate that she had spend sometime before hand, she had actually heard about how the Rebels had managed to avoid the Agents in this very building by travel through the buildings walls to escape and that would be her ticket down, Illyanna quickly orientated herself working her position within the building out to that of the mental map in her mind.

Once that was worked out she moved over to the door silent, listening to any possible noise in the corridor outside to checked the corridor was definitely clear, opening the door and a quick cautious peak proved so, allowing her to move into the corridor with no problems. She moved towards the west wall which would be the one that lead directly down into the room the disks should hopefully be in, reaching the wall she tore several of the wall boards out with as little noise as she could before pausing to listen whether she had been noticed, after a moment she was certain she was fine and squeezed herself into the gap between the two walls and began slowly climbing her way down the three floors.

She tensed as she reached her destination, listening for any possible noise in room which could give away the presence of any hostiles, peaking through a small gap in the wall allowed her to spy into the room and to check the room was clear to a certain extent, she could see what she assumed were the target disks sitting on the table in the centre of the room. As carefully and as silently she could she broke a section of the wall, enough to squeeze through before slipping into the room, walking over to the desk revealed a large pile of disks that would be far too many for her to take at once however she only needed the target disks and could check the disks one by one on the computer they had conveniently left next to the disks. Illyanna as quickly as she could checked each and everyone of the mini disks on the computer discarding the ones that didn't contain the relevant information, at least her employer had felt fit to inform her of the file names that she would be searching for, the disks were being quickly checked and she had picked up 3 of the 4 required disks.

Fate however suddenly decided to pile on the pressure as Illyanna heard voices the room on the other side of the double door, offering a silent curse and prayer to whatever god existed in this godforsaken place she ducked behind the table, within moment however it became obvious that whoever the voices were they weren't going to come straight into the room and remained outside discussing something just beyond her hearing. Deciding to take a risk Illyanna stood up from behind cover and began frantically checking the remaining disks searching for the final disk she needed while discarding the useless ones, as Illyanna reached for one of the remaining 7 unchecked disks in order to check it the double doors burst open.

Neo and Trinity strolled in the room deep in conversation until they together spotted Illyanna standing at their computer equipment and froze along with Illyanna who had frozen like a deer in the proverbial headlight, ten thousands thoughts ran through Illyanna's mind, most of them rather creative speculation on god's parentage before grabbing the remaining 7 disks and stuffing them into her jacket. That motion knocked Neo and Trinity out of their shock and they rushed forward to engage the intruder, Illyanna blocked twin attacks from both Neo and Trinity with some difficulty as she fought to get enough space to make good an escape, her chance came as Trinity struck out to hit her leaving herself open.

Taking full advantage of that Illyanna grabbed Trinity's arm and threw her hard into Neo before sprinting off into the other room leaving the pile two Rebels to sort themselves out, she burst out the second set of double doors ignoring the cries of a startled random Rebel before jumping onto the stair banisters, using it to slide down to the half way landing. Illyanna didn't even bother to pause as she fell off the banister at the end, sticking her hand out before using them to bounce off the wall and travel straight down the second half of the stairs down to the next floor without slowing down in the slightest.

Illyanna turned and ran for the next load of stairs in a full sprint racing through the corridors before skidding to a stop in horror looking at the grim faced dark figure that had just dropped down in front of her.

Neo moved almost faster than she could see and grabbed her harshly, grinning nastily "Gotcha"

Thinking fast Illyanna reared her head back and head butted him as hard as she could with full vampiric strength, Neo cried out in pain as his head was hit with enough force to shatter concrete causing him to let go of her and take a step backwards whilst clutching his head. He tripped over his bellowing coat behind him and let out a sound that most certainly _wasn't_ a scream before crashing down the stairs, bouncing several times in a tangle of coat, limbs and swear words.

Illyanna's sight of the savoir of humanity bouncing like a demented otter was cut shoot as she instinctively ducked as bullets ricocheted off the walls mere inches from her head shot by no other than Trinity, Illyanna dodged more bullets as best she could as she sprinted down the corridor and around the nearest corner. She winced in pain as several bullets hit their marks before she got around the corner and out of sight, Illyanna grabbed her key, shoving it into the nearest door before running though said door she had opened, closing it behind her.

Trinity ran around the corner after the dark haired woman however her target appeared to have disappeared, not put off Trinity kicked in the doors to the rooms in the corridor but whoever had been here was long gone and had managed to escape them which was more than a little embarrassing. Trinity let out a huff of breath annoyed; whoever had just stolen the disks was probably working for the Agents, Traitors to humanity, she would never understand or forgive them.

"Fucking recruits" She muttered hatefully under her breath as she walked back to check on the others, walking out onto the stair well she saw a large dust cloud hover in the air and the rather bemused faces of her fellow crew mates as they looked down the stairs.

Trinity blinked as she looked over the banister at the impressive dust cloud that had formed at the bottom of the stairs. "Neo?" Trinity called out concerned.

"Owww..."

* * *

Illyanna leaned against a wall of the backdoors and laughed as she slowly slide down the wall, leaving red blood streaks down the wall behind her, the injuries wouldn't kill her despite the pain they caused and she reached into her jacket searching for something. Pulling out the disks from her jacket, she checked they were okay before kissing them eyes glittering then tucking them back into her jacket, she had managed to successfully obtain the disks for her employers and it looked like she could get that new motorbike she had her eyes on. With her next pay check ensured Illyanna began carefully pulling out the bullets which had managed to get lodged in her body, grinning meanwhile at the recent memory of her frenzied flight, the adrenaline, excitement and escaping death by a hairs breath, these were the things she lived for.

Illyanna watched as the injuries healed quickly before her eyes while juggling the three bullets she had bullet out of her body in her hand, vampiric healing was really useful at times and this was definitely one of those times. Sighing she pulled herself up and headed towards the backdoor which lead to the gutter, it had ruined a perfectly good top and jacket, bullets were such a nuisance.

Walking through the door from the backdoors into the 'Gutter', Illyanna was greeted by the sight of both Gemini and Tara standing in the entrance halls waiting for her; Tara looked somewhat nervous and awkward while Gemini definitely looked annoyed.

"You've got visitors" Gemini informed Illyanna with a deep scowl, pointed across into the living room with her arm.

"You've also been shot" Tara pointed out looking slight freaked, Illyanna shrugged it of and walked into the living room to see who had come to visit her, she recognised Mortis and the Werecat triplets but she didn't recognise either the vampire or the brown haired girl whom had a strange scent. Illyanna frowned, if she was suddenly surrounded by Lilith's brood then that most likely meant...

Illyanna spun around and gapped in disbelief "Mother!"

Lilith lay sprawled across the couch completely carefree, fully enjoying her childe's reaction and smiled at Illyanna "hi honey"

Illyanna stood and stared at Lilith in disbelief some more before groaning "I've died and gone to hell" she bemoaned.

Mortis chuckled at Illyanna's mortification, knowing full well the relationship between Illyanna and Lilith or rather the disaster that dared called itself a relationship whilst the brown haired girl looked around a little confusedly, obviously not having a clue on their pasts.

Illyanna rubbed her hand across her face. "What are you are doing here?" she asked in despair, her day was quickly taking a turn for the worst.

"Do I need a reason to visit one of my daughters?" Lilith asked pretending to be wounded.

Illyanna scowled and replied to her mother in a beautifully sarcastic tone. "Yes, actually"

Lilith frowned. "No need to be sarcastic dear" She told her childe.

Illyanna sighed tiredly.

"Make yourselves at home guys, I need to go change" Illyanna told the group, gesturing down to her bloody clothes before heading off to her room.

Stepping into her room the first thing Illyanna did was to stash the disks somewhere safe namely one of those wall socket/safe things she'd picked up and modified a little... exploding traps where such fun. Stripping out of her clothes, she gave herself a quick cleaning off before changing into fresh clothes and walked out into the living room to once again to confront her mother with a hopefully more objective mindset... ah, who was she kidding?

Returning back into the Gutters main living room she discovered everyone more or less sitting around waiting for her return, idly making small talk and catching up on recent events, Gemini and Tara were curled up on the couch with the Werecat triplets scattered lazily around them. Illyanna sat down in a chair opposite to her mother and focus all of her attention on her. "So why do you grace us with your presence?" Illyanna asked wearily.

Lilith looked at Illyanna calmly, seeming to reflect infinite patience. "Well I have decided to pay my good friend the Merovingian a visit" She informed Illyanna in a tone slightly laced with humour.

"Hell" Murmured Gemini "We all know how much he enjoyed it the last time you paid him a visit"

Illyanna flicked her eyes from Lilith to Gemini and back again, she didn't want old hostilities to flare up and Gemini was not helping. The pair of them had old back history dating all the way back to the creation of this world and Gemini's Exile, Lilith never did like Gemini whether that was because of Illyanna's previous relationship with her or the fact Gemini was a Hybrid type Exile Illyanna was never able to tell. It was probably a combination of the two however in her favour Lilith wasn't so much caring now days, seems that 150 years had pretty much burnt the hatred out or that's at least what Illyanna hoped.

"Any particular reason for this visit?" Illyanna jumped in, using the question as an attempted to distract them and hopefully preventing another incident.

Lilith looked at Gemini but didn't say anything deciding to play nice and answer Illyanna's question instead.

"A bunch of Mero's goons decided to invade my territory, after leading my people on a merry chase through the streets of London attracting the attention of the Recruits and Agents. The end result mass property damage and a hippy wagon sticking out of 'Thomas & Sons' Antique shop." Lilith did not sound pleased as she said this, in fact she had that quiet dangerous aura surrounding her.

Illyanna though back to what she knew of London and winced, 'Thomas & Sons' was one of Lilith's more favourite shops and although she probably wouldn't have to pay for the property damage, she would be annoyed at the destruction of her personal favourite shopping locations.

"Cool" Replied Gemini impressed by the sheer level of chaos, then again when you combined Liliths forces with Mero's then chaos was the only possible outcome, it had been that way ever since their first meeting and slowly been getting worse and worse.

Illyanna waiting for the bloodbath to commence, she waited 5 seconds and was pleasantly surprised that Lilith hadn't at least maimed Gemini, seems she really was getting over those previous incidents Illyanna mused.

"So why drop by?" Illyanna asked now curious to her mothers purpose, Lilith wasn't _exactly_ Illyanna's mother but instead the primary program to which Illyanna was once a sub program serving and they had translated their connection as such that they were family members now.

Lilith's eyes sharpened and you could sense her getting ready for business. "I need to know the details of Mero's latest movements, who's working for him and how good they are." Lilith stated, it all but being an order.

Illyanna cocked her head. "Well I should have that information in the study" She told her mother standing up and gesturing down a corridor with a spare arm. "Your people can wait here whilst we talk."

Lilith stood up from her sitting location and stretched like that of a big cat before nodding. "That would be good. Tell me? Are those ghosts of his still around?" She asked as the pair walked of towards the study and out of earshot.

The group in the Living room was still for a moment until Gemini shifted, trying to free herself from Tara who lay on top of her, Tara herself had thoughtful look on her face. "That was an interesting experience" She stated before turning her head to look at Gemini. "What was that all about?"

Gemini grinned somewhat wryly.

"Lilith doesn't much like me, actually compared to previous meeting that went positively smoothly" She told her lover, Tara shifted some more so she was more comfortable lying across Gemini and Gemini herself gave up on trying to move for the next few hours, Dark angels could be just as stubborn as werewolves on some things.

In Tara's case it was getting her to move once she was comfortable, Gemini gave the room a quick look, the Werecats were lying lazily around on the couch and chairs, they would be quite happy there for the next few hours. Mortis and the Brown haired girl still had very little to do though and the Brown haired girl was looking somewhat uncomfortable with the pair of them.

"Hey you" Gemini called to the girl whom looked like she was still well within her teens.

"Who? Me?" The girl asked in confusion, looking around for anyone else.

Gemini smirked. "Yes you" She told the girl "What's your name?"

"Oh.. its Ember" The girl said, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. Something about her very character struck Gemini as wrong until it suddenly clicked in her mind, in fact Gemini mental scolded herself for not noticing it sooner.

"You're a hybrid type aren't you?" Gemini asked curiously, her eyes sharp and picking up on small details such as the girl wearing much heavier clothing than anyone else, yet she still wrapped her arms around herself as though she were cold.

Ember bit her lip nervously giving Mortis a quick look out of the corner of her eyes before replying. "Yes, Yes I am" She said and then frowned "Why?"

It was Tara that spoke up from her place lying across Gemini's lap. "My changeling here is one of the first hybrids in existence" She spoke with something akin to pride and at the same time teasing, it was weird for her to imagine being alive for as long as Gemini and even weirder to be in a relationship with someone like that but when you're a program, very little in your life is likely to be normal.

"The first" Gemini gently reminded, she had been Exiled some 154 years ago when her purpose as an emulator program between the two difference version of the Matrix that had existed at that time, had finally expired. The very night she had been Exiled she had almost been killed by Agent Brown, currently one of the most enthusiastic agents at killing Exiles, in fact he seemed to make it personal.

Ember blinked in surprise. "Wow... You must be really old!" She exclaimed before wincing at her wording.

Tara burst into laughter at Gemini's expense, Gemini herself merely rolled her eyes. "Wise is the word I prefer... Really wise." She mumbled.

"Anyway" Gemini announced, remembering what she was going to say before she was side tracked. "What I was going to say is that there is a pool table over in the other room, it'll give you something to do" She suggested, pointing in the direction of the room.

"Nice" Said Ember before dragging a reluctant Mortis and Raven off to play several rounds of pool, the large black man looking like he'd rather sit and polish his gun, he was such a bore at times. Raven was much easier to drag off, in fact she looked like she wouldn't mind a distraction.

Gemini chuckled slightly at the pair as they left, idly playing it Tara's hair.

Tara shifted to look at her again, this time with an appraising look. "So now it seems that our quite night in at your place has been invaded by the horde, wanna go to my apartment?" She asked slyly.

Gemini's warmed up and twinkled with mischief. "What are we waiting for?" She asked.

Needless to say... the pair were out the door faster than lightening, leaving only the lazy semi sleeping Werecats behind who regarded the whole situation with a laidback amusement but really couldn't be bothered to move or say anything, Illyanna and Gemini really had great taste in soft furniture.

* * *

Quentin arrived back at his apartment with a variety of different feelings and emotions, to say he was conflicted was the understatement of the year, he had finally tracked down what he had been searching for and had been rejected out of hand by the Vampiress. What was even more confusing was his sudden desire to actually become a vampire instead of just finding one, the more and more he searched down in his soul he realised that it was that desire that had been driving him all along.

But why would one want to become a vampire? A creature cursed to walk the earth for all eternity and drink the blood of the living.

Immortality.

Vampires were immortal, so far so that as long as they didn't do anything particularly stupid or attract unwanted attention to themselves, they could live forever or at least until the universe ended. 'It would suck to still be around when the universe ended' Quentin mused and then winced at the mental vampire pun.

Tonight wasn't a complete failure however and this brightened his spirits considerably, Vampires were real, he hadn't gotten a good look at the Vampiress but something deep in his soul told him that he had found one. He was actually incredible surprised he had found one in an actual graveyard, the more he thought about it, the more idiotic that seemed to him and he realised the only reason an actual Vampiress was there was to watch the stars.

Vampires watching the stars seemed somewhat out of character but then again, no tale is told without corruption and since vampires were supposedly once people themselves then why shouldn't they still retain their hobbies and interests.

Quentin sat in front of his computer and booted it up, waiting patiently as the OS loaded up before opening his Messenger program to see if anyone had left any messages for him. A quick check proved that yes, in fact several people had but only Lorelei was still online, Quentin pondered about Lorelei he or she was a weird character to be sure but their advice was always sound.

He clicked on Lorelei's symbol and opened a chat window with them.

DarkWorld5: Hi

Lorelei: Ah.. Hello Dark

DarkWorld5: How you doing?

Lorelei: Oh Im alright, yourself?

Darkworld5: Good, I think I found something

Lorelei: Looks interested Such as?

Darkworld5: I meet a dark figure in a graveyard...

Darkworld5: A woman... Im sure shes a vampires

Lorelei: A graveyard?? Seems a little clique don't you think?

Darkworld5: Embarrassed I realise that now but I think she was looking at the stars...

Lorelei: Interesting, so what are you planning to do next?

Darkworld5: I don't know, I probably head back to the graveyard and see if she returns.

Lorelei: well be careful whatever you do, vampires aint the only monsters in the darkness

Lorelei: Try not to become vamp food either Grins

Darkworld5: Rolls eyes Thanks for the sound advice...

Lorelei: Winks Anything honey...

Lorelei: Hmmm...

Lorelei: I have to go now

Lorelei: Shame, we never get to chat much now

Darkworld5: You busy?

Lorelei: Oh im just looking after a place for someone

Lorelei: Anyway... Toodles!

Darkworld5: Bye!

Lorelei Has Logged Off.

Quentin shrugged and typed up his current experience on his computer, using it as a digital diary just in case he should forget any details over time. Once he had finished typing up the recent event he yawned, looking at his wrist watch showed it was getting onto 2 am and Quentin raised an eyebrow, he hadn't realised it was that late, he switched the computer and walked over to his bedroom.

He barely had time to get undressed and into bed before falling asleep.


	9. Chapter 9

The Merovingian was sat at his rather expensive antique desk, using his laptop to work out some new information laundering scheme which would hopeful gain him yet more power and prestige in the Exile world, there were few people who could rival him with sheer power and he was working to succeed them, including that annoying woman vampire. Mero pursed his lips, its seemed to be a programming trait that all vampire women must be a thorn in his side, perhaps the system was conspiring against him, whether it was Lilith, Persephone or one of his lesser Vampiresses they all seemed to give him some headache or another.

The tried not to hire female vampires for such reasons, the only reason he kept Persephone around was that she was still pleasing on both the eye and other parts of the body, although he would dispose of he once he tired of her.

Whilst he was happily anticipating his wife's unfortunate demise, one of his lower henchmen entered the room and marched up to the desk, the Merovingian raised his eyebrows and looked like he was expecting him whilst simultaneously trying to remember the guys name, he gave up about 2 seconds later, they all looked the same anyway. His regular bodyguards and the twins were not present, having somehow managed to arrange holiday time just when they heard that Persephone was planning to go on vacation, how very convenient...

The henchman huffed slightly out of breath; it becoming obvious that he had ran from wherever he had come from.

"Yes? Vell? Zhat iz it?" Mero asked annoyed and wanting to get back to his work, he had a new operation to plan and did not need the distractions of the riff raff variety.

"Persephone seems happy" The henchman told Mero importantly.

Mero blinked at the sheer stupidity behind that answer and counted to 5 before answering, dead henchmen told no tales, they also stained the carpet. "And you though thiz important 'ow?" he asked.

"REALLY happy" The henchman insisted "Like when the stock market crashed"

"_meeeerd-euh_" Mero drawled out the curse as he closed his laptop and stood up, anything that pleased his wife was likely to be nothing sort of an absolute disaster for him, he cared not to remember the previous times. "Vhere iz she?"

"In the foyer" The henchman answered swiftly and straight away, walking to keep up with the Merovingian as he stalked his way towards the foyer, bursting through the downstairs double doors the Merovingian was greeted by a most unwelcome sight. Lilith and Persephone finished their idly chit chat and turned to face the newcomer that had stormed in, behind the pair stood Lilith's almost entirely female entourage complete with that Vampiress bitch who had raided him only a few months ago, Illyanna smirked as Mero scowled when he saw her.

Mero looked over Lilith's group in disgust "zhat its zis? Ze attack of ze valkaries?" he sneered as he walked up to the pair.

"Merovingian. How nice of you to abandon your whores to grace our presence" Lilith greeted Mero with barely concealed sarcasm.

"Persephone, you did not invite zis... woman, did you?" Asked Mero deeply disapproving, the question was laced with threat which Persephone shifted uneasily under.

Lilith looked Mero over coldly and calmly. "Oh no, I came by myself. It seems you have difficulty grasping the very basic concept of territory"

"Territory? Vat territories are you speaking of?" The Merovingian asked with a sickly sweet condescending tone.

Lilith stared at him before whipping out a pistol, aiming at head level and firing.

"Putain!" Cried Mero as the bullet skimmed his head and exploded an antique vase behind him.

"You missed" Commented Persephone idly.

"You! You Crazy English bitch! Zat vaz an 1703 original. One of only two in existence!" Mero shouted as he looked in horror at the destroyed vase.

"One of one now" Lilith smirked, holding the gun calmly at her side. "Now shall we talk about violating my territory again?"

"Vhat territory?! I don't know anything about territory" Protested the spluttering Mero.

Lilith raised her eyebrow before blowing the other vase away with her gun, Mero stood fuming, Ember swore she could almost see the steam coming out of his ears and from the way the Merovingian's mouth was flapping it seems words, for once, had failed him.

Doors opened around the foyer and Mero's less reliable Henchmen rushed in, attracted by the gun shots. They paused confusedly after taking in the scene, their boss fuming in front of a smirking vampiress and a group of unknown soldiers, female soldiers mostly, behind her with lady Persephone standing alongside the Vampiress. The move was not a blatant show of her joining up the Vampiress against Mero but she was definitely standing closer to the vampiress than she was to the Merovingian.

The Merovingian finally got a grip of himself, straightened his jacket out and glared at Lilith. "I think mademoiselle Lilith, zhat you have out stay you welcome" He announced imperiously.

"Success hasn't changed you a bit has it? You're still the same ass you always were." Lilith commented idly, Illyanna from back in the crowd snorted.

Mero narrowed his eyes and clicked his fingers, his henchmen stepped up and readied their weapons, Persephone took the time to take several cautious steps away from Lilith to the edge of the foyer.

"Kill zhem" Mero announced to his men and the room exploded into chaos.

The Werecats Triplets moved like lightening, pulling out their twin Uzi's and firing at Mero's lot as they sprinted for the sides of the room splitting up to avoid the hail of firepower from Mero's men as they opened up on Lilith's people with their Guns, Ember screamed and threw herself to the ground to avoid a hail of bullets. Lilith stood calmly in the centre of the firestorm, twisting reality so every bullet easily missed her and calmly collided into the wall behind her leaving rather large holes in the otherwise extremely expensive décor.

Raven slapped her MP5, chambering the first round whilst moving sideways to avoid the volley of bullets being only partly successful as bullets clip her shoulder and side, her return fire however caught two of the Merovingian's men in the chest and both of them went down. Mortis stood side on to Mero's men using his side on position to limit his exposed profile and unloaded his shotgun into face of an unfortunate before throwing the gun up and using it as a club to brain another one of Mero's men.

The Werecats skimmed along the sides of the foyer, engaging in fierce fights using Uzi's on those lucky enough to be far enough away and mauling those who weren't with a vicious transformation into tooth and claw, their large black Werecat forms claws tearing horrific chunks of flesh away from their opponents who were near defence less.

The remaining two of Mero's men leapt forward to fight Illyanna and Lilith in close combat, a mistake in anyone's book, the unfortunate soul who attacked Lilith will probably forever be held as an example of why such things are bad. Reality and shadows around Lilith twisted transforming her into a terrifying shadow beast that shredded and devoured the hapless fool with shadowly tooth and claw, Illyannas attacker paused horrified at the sudden transformation and Illyanna took advantage of his distraction in order to snap his neck.

The snap echo'd around the room as all the fighting finished, the room was devastated with bullet holes in priceless antiques and the exquisite Marble stairs blow to pieces by the firepower, all around lay the Merovingian's non regular henchmen in various states of dead or dying.

Conveniently the Merovingian was nowhere to be found, the Frenchman obviously using the slaughter of his less useful men as a prime chance to escape, Lilith shooked her head and kicked the twisted body at her feet. "Mero. You are living proof of reincarnation. No one could possibly get to be so stupid in just one lifetime." She muttered disbelievingly, she couldn't understanding wasting such life on nothing more than a basic insult.

Sometimes Lilith wondered how such a smart person could be so chronically stupid, still that was what made the Merovingian so easy to play against at times, this battle was never one he was going to win, some of Liliths better people and against human type henchmen who seemed to have fairly poor training. Talking about training Lilith frowned somewhat disapprovingly at Ember who was picking herself off the floor after all the shooting had stopped, Ember caught Liliths eye and blushed in embarrassment at her actions.

"It would appear my husband has abandoned me, again" Persephone announced without humour from her place standing at the edge of the foyer.

"It would seem so" Lilith commented looking around the destruction of the foyer. "He is going to be most displeased when he returns" Lilith said grinning, almost mentally disappointed she wouldn't be around to see his ranting, maybe she should install a spy camera.

Lilith finished her musing and turned her attention back to Persephone. "You could come back with us childe, you would not have to put up with his Attentions" She told the younger ex-vampiress.

Persephone looked uneasy "I would love to but you know I cant." She answered back sadly.

Lilith smiled at Persephone. "Well the offer is always open" She told the woman before turning to walk out of the devastated foyer with her people following her out, it would be an idea to leave before the Merovingian returned with much better reinforcements.

Persephone watched the group disappear into the backdoors before walking off deep into the chateau.

* * *

Morning had arrived and gone, Quentin having spent the day at his computer visiting Vampire enthusiast websites in an attempt to learn more about the legends and what to expect however like any true paranormal specialist will know that information on the internet ranges from totally inaccurate to near impossible to find.

Night beckoned with its usual dark embrace as the sun set, Quentin slammed the door to his apartment shut and headed out into the dark city with the very real intent of finding one of its predators. Walking through the streets tonight the world seemed different, less real and Quentin spotted several individuals walking down the street that long ago he would have passed his eyes over but now was attracted by them, they seemed to radiate a different aura, one that he couldn't quite recognise but couldn't shake the feeling he would soon find out.

Arriving at the graveyard, Quentin explored the dark and shadowy graveyard, ignoring the eerie glow from the street lamps, unfortunately the rest place of the dead was void of the living dead however the night was still young and Quentin was confident that would see another vampire here. Quentin settled over the twin gravestones that he had first discovered the Vampiress on, sitting across the tomb stone Quentin tightened up his jacket and sat and waited for someone to come.

Waited and waited and waited and waited and waited............................

Quentin suddenly jerked awake and tried to work out what had awoken him, it took him several moments for his sleep addled brain to notice the pale feminine figure sitting with her knees up just across from him and when he did, he blinked.

"What are you doing back her again, Child?" Asked the same vampiress cocking her head to the side as if that would allow her to better study him, it was the same one from last night, Quentin could tell by the voice.

Quentin looked the woman before him, she had wild tousled black hair that seemed purest black against her pale white skin which all but glowed under the moonlight and scarlet eyes which seemed to spotted every detail with cold detachedness. Her clothing was vampiric trademark black although at the same time did not scream gothic, instead she seemed like a normal woman in her mid twenties if one did not pay to close attention to those sharp scarlet eyes which reflected unnatural age.

Quentin licked his lips nervously. "I want to join you, to become a creature of the night and live forever"

"Don't you understand? This is not living forever, this is dying forever, never one nor the other for all eternity. Most mortals fear death but for them death is but an instant, to me it has stretched for almost 110 years." The vampiress spoke with some exasperation, mortals didn't consider the repercussions of their fantasies.

"I don't care, it is what I want, it is what I've always wanted" He stated firmly to the vampires, she merely raised a perfect eyebrow to him.

"You do realise it is a secret world, a hidden world with dangers beyond your understanding and once you walk this path of Exile there is no turning back" The vampiress warned the youngster in front of her.

"I understand do, do it" Quentin told the vampiress, She just shook her head in disbelief and then lashed out faster than he could follow, her teeth clamped around his neck and she held him in a deadly grip as she feed from him, time seemed to slow down as she feed from him until finally she let him drop to the ground.

Quentin saw the vampiress stand over him as his heart beat slowly began slowing down. Beat.. Beat... Beat.... Beat...............

Enchantment looked down at his cooling body. "Welcome to the other side" She muttered.

* * *

The Rebels had been shot, sliced, disembowelled, vaporised and otherwise killed, Merovingian's new paint job was sporting brand new holes and the clan had gained an EAH or two, something perhaps worrying as EAH loyalties could be dubious but all in all it was an average month for Lilith's clan. Wraith, the Albino second in command of Liliths forces, laid back in her chair with a chocolate bar she bit into, damnit after all that had happened she deserved this and the clan would survive, hopefully, without her pestering everyone for just 5 minutes.

Wraith sighed contently as the white chocolate melted in her mouth, normal or dark chocolate was such a pain to get out of all white clothing, something people now expected Ghost exiles to wear, pesky twins setting a fashion trend. She was sat in one of the more higher up common rooms used only by Crew leaders or the more Elite members of Lilith fraction, this had two main advantages, firstly it was much more luxurious than the normal common rooms and also most people avoid such places like a plague lest they be volunteered to join in some crazy task the higher ups set them.

Wraith at the moment almost had the room to herself except for the Werecat triplets whom were curled up leather couch in front of the huge fireplace, they had come in with Lilith and Illyanna discussing old and new times, it was good to see mother and daughter together for once. The pair had some pretty interesting history in their pasts, mostly revolving around Illyanna's choice of partners still despite all her faults at least Illyanna was around when needed, you rarely heard about Liliths other daughters and perhaps that was for the best all things considered.

Wraith looked at the now empty chocolate bar wrapper and frowned before throwing it into a decorative bin in the corner of the room, it was best she get back to work, an XO job was never done. Now... Wraith mused, she had to find two certain Exiles and punish them for the incineration of one common room...

* * *

The mess hall was a huge busy affair with several hundred exiles bustling to take seats at the tables and kitchen staff coming and going with food that they laid down on the tables in seemingly random patterns, Pyro entered the room and looked around the room for someone he recognised. In the far back corner table her noticed Ember and walked over to her, avoiding a brunette who was carrying a stack of plates before pulling out the chair and sitting besides her.

Ember looked up as he sat down next to her. "What do you want?" she asked annoyed and not particularly wanting to deal with another one of his stunts.

"Nothing, just some company" Pyro told her before looking around. "You haven't seen Jennifer have you?" He asked her, revealing his true cause for hunting her down.

"Who?" Ember asked in both annoyance and confusion.

"Red headed girl about so high, Irish accent" Pyro described gesturing the approximate height.

Ember pursed her lips and shook her head "Don't know her" she told Pyro, hoping that he would disappear after it became obvious she didn't know.

She had no such luck as he grabbed one of the serving dishes and began piling food onto his plate. "Hey could you pass me that?" He asked pointing to a tray of French rolls, Ember sighed and passed him the tray.

Pyro was busy eating when he sudden spotted Ross walking past him "ooh.." he mumbled around a mouthful of food as he reached out and grabbed him.

"hmm? What?" Ross as distracted as he was stopped by Pyro

Pyro swallowed and cleared his mouth. "Do you know were Jennifer is?" He asked Ross, he hadn't seen the girl since the 'Aquat' and had quite liked her.

"Jennifer? The red haired girl you were with at the Aquat?" Ross asked

"Yeah, that's her" Pyro told him

"She works on the kitchen staff mate, She's probably up to her eyeballs in work right now" Ross informed Pyro, grabbing an apple and taking a bite before walking off to find somewhere to sit.

Pyro turned around back to the table. "Bugger" he muttered before taking a bite out of a French roll slice.

"Girlfriend missing?" Ember asked sarcastically deciding if she had to put up with him sitting next to her she might as well talk to him.

"Yeah" Pyro bemoaned failing to notice Embers sarcasm, Ember rolled her eyes and took a spoonful of soup.

She was about to take another spoonful when she stopped. "Hey. Who are those two?" She asked nodded over to a table in the centre where a young man and woman where sat surrounded by Exiles of all shapes, sizes and species.

"Ah, Haven't you heard? They are the new EAH's. The guy is Quentin, a vampire EAH and the woman is Laverna, Werewolf, of course she is going to be shipped of to Tokyo when Alyssa and that lot leave" Pyro told Ember informatively, rather proud that he at least was in with the latest gossip, one of the advantages of befriending the Mermaids.

"Their taking a very long time to do a simple meeting" Ember mused puzzled

Another Exile on the opposite side of the table leaned forward. "The groups don't get too meet up all that often, they take their time so everyone can catch up. It improves moral you see and also gives the higher ups an excuse to mess about for a while" He told Ember waving a breadstick in emphasis.

Ember quirked her lips at that piece of information as a hand lands heavy on both hers and Pyro's shoulders, a very pale hand and in almost comical style they slowly turned to see that hand attached to very white certain second in command.

"Well, well if it's not the two Exiles I was looking for" Wraith informed the pair way too cheerfully for their liking, she leaned forward. "Tell me... how good you two at D.I.Y.?" she asked rhetorically.

* * *

Ember screwed in a lightbulb and then glared banefully at Pyro. "I hate you, you know that?" She asked narrowing her eyes.

Pyro sighed as he paused in painting a wall "You've only told me that 5 times in the past half an hour"

"I must be slipping then" Ember said as she climbed down the ladder back down to the floor. "This is your entire fault, you know that?" She asked again.

"You've also said that about 5 times in the past half an hour" Pyro said distractedly, Ember just shoot him a look of irritation.

Wraith leaned back in her chair enjoying a white chocolate bar and watched the squabbling pair work... life was good.

The End.


End file.
